Psychic Read online

  Psychic

  Sam and Sam Book Three

  Chloe Garner

  Second Edition

  Copyright © 2014 Chloe Garner

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Covers by Christian

  Published by A Horse Called Alpha

  Work by Chloe Garner

  Anadidd’na Universe

  -Rangers

  -Shaman

  -Psychic

  -Warrior

  -Dragonsword

  -Child

  -Book of Carter

  -Gypsy Becca: Death of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Dawn: Life of a Gypsy Queen

  -Gypsy Bella: Legacy of a Gypsy Queen

  Other Urban Fantasy

  -Hooligans

  Science Fiction

  -Portal Jumpers

  -Portal Jumpers II: House of Midas

  -Portal Jumpers III: Battle of Earth

  Space Western

  -Sarah Todd

  For Bossy and BloNde, co-conspirators extraordinaire.

  PSYCHIC

  There were lampposts. And headlights. And the sound of Gwen’s engine, deep, content. Once, sunlight flickering through trees woke him, but his brain didn’t know what to do with it, so he went back to sleep again.

  There was food once. Maybe twice. Voices, low. A hand on his face. He slept on.

  He woke with a crisp sensation of being ready, breeze in his face through the open window.

  His whole body ached from too much sleep in a car seat, and he unbuckled his seat belt to stretch, looking for Sam and Samantha. They were sitting in view, on a beach. Sam had his arm around her and she had her head on his shoulder as they watched the sun set over the ocean. He stuck his head out the window.

  “Where are we?”

  Samantha turned and grinned at him.

  “Look who made it. Sam was worried. I told him he was being a little girl.”

  Sam dropped his forehead against hers, then turned.

  “Florida.”

  Jason rubbed both eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “Last I remember, we were in Detroit. That actually happened, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, you actually passed out on the floor and I had to drag you to the car,” Samantha said. Jason opened the car door and stumbled out, sensation returning to his feet only after he realized he needed them. He held on to the door for a minute, stabilizing. Sam got up to help him, but Jason waved him off.

  “How come I look like I got the short end of the stick, here?” Jason asked. Sam shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jason waved him off again and started toward the wood stairs Sam and Samantha had been sitting on, his knees giving. Sam caught him. Jason grunted, grabbing hold of Sam’s jacket instinctively. Sam hugged him.

  “Thank you,” he said. Jason got his feet underneath himself and hugged him back.

  “Yeah.”

  Jason looked over at Samantha, who was tracing something in the air with spread fingers.

  “Has she slept?” Jason asked. Sam shook his head, speaking quietly.

  “She’s not okay,” he said. “She knows I know, but she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  Jason looked at him, taking a step back, but holding on to Sam’s arms, hoping that it looked more emphatic than dependent.

  “You were dead, Sam. What do you expect?”

  Sam’s nostrils flared and he pressed his mouth.

  “I don’t know. She’s not okay.”

  “You didn’t see what she had to do,” Jason said, remembering his brother’s body hanging upside-down from the ceiling. “Has she slept?”

  Sam shook his head. Jason pulled his mouth to the side.

  “So why Florida?” he asked, louder. Samantha’s head was tipped back as she stacked figures onto figures in three-dimensional space.

  “I needed sun and light and not Detroit,” she said. Jason looked around.

  “This certainly isn’t Detroit.”

  He sat down next to her on the step and looked at the dark, rolling water. She reached over to take his pulse, other hand still working.

  “So, I guess in retrospect, I shot the wrong one,” he said.

  “What did happen with Missy?” Sam asked.

  “There was a room full of guns. Couple of nice hunting rifles. I didn’t find it until I went looking for her after she knocked me out. She just started shooting.”

  “Why?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve had some time to think about it,” Samantha said. “She saw what a demon could do to amuse herself for ten years when she had hold of a psychic. She was protecting the world from that.” She looked at Jason. “What happened to her?”

  “She was still shooting when I found her. I told her to drop the rifle, and she kept shooting.” He sighed. “I shot her dead.”

  “How many shots did she take?”

  Jason counted.

  “Eight.”

  “I only heard two,” Sam said.

  “I found a slug splattered all over a rock by Sam,” Jason said, indicating Samantha. “I think she was gunning for her.”

  Samantha looked away.

  “I’m sure it made sense to her.”

  She started weaving in the air again.

  “So what are we doing?” Jason asked.

  “We’re off-grid,” Samantha said. “Phones off, no computers. I e-mailed Simon in Ohio to let him know we’re laying up. Doris knows we’re alive. That’s all.”

  “Why?” Jason asked. Her hands froze.

  She looked at him for a long count, then looked at Sam and made a strangled whining noise. Sam’s face showed the same confused alarm Jason felt. She jumped off the step and ran down to the water’s edge. Sam shook his head at Jason - no, he didn’t know what had just happened - and they followed.

  She paced up and down in the wet sand, keeping her toes above the waves, wild fingers jabbing at the air in spasmic patterns.

  “Sam?” Sam asked.

  “Aaaah,” she said, then gritted her teeth, reaching for him with both hands. He pulled back. “I need to kill it,” she said, putting her hands over his eyes. “Bring it to me.”

  Sam stiffened and she stood in front of him, head tilted slightly, watching him.

  “What did you just do?” Jason asked.

  “Getting myself a demon,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it is.”

  “What?”

  Sam came back.

  “Tell me.”

  He looked at the sun.

  “In about an hour. A couple of teenage boys and a homeless man.”

  She drew Lahn and flicked her through the air, then returned the epic blade to the sheath on her back.

  “Let’s go.”

  Sam sighed.

  “Jason isn’t up for this,” he said.

  “You’re just going to let them kill him?”

  “I didn’t say that…”

  “Besides, I don’t need him. Let’s go.”

  She took the keys out of her pocket and Jason fought the urge to grab them. She eyed him as though she knew, then looked defiantly at Sam for a long time. Sam looked at Jason for backup, but Jason didn’t know what was going on well enough to pick a side. Another moment and Samantha was headed back to the car with a with-you-or-without-you stride. Jason glanced at Sam’s jacket as they followed.

  “Dude, you know it’s like eighty, right?” He wondered if he had taken off his jacket or if someone had done it for him. He didn’t like losing time like that.

  “I’m still cold,” Sam said. Jason looked at him and Sam shrugged.

  “Sam doesn’t know if it’s going to go away or not. Says not a lot of people have… come back. What was it like?”

  Jason mostly reme
mbered a sweaty, dizzy exhaustion as he tried to force Sam’s heart to pump whatever thick sludge had been left after Samantha had hung him from the ceiling. Candles. Brandt. The demon had threatened Jason before Samantha had kicked him out. Jason wondered if Sam knew that.

  “You had eight lines stuck in your neck, and there were a bunch of words I didn’t understand,” Jason said. “You don’t remember anything?”

  “Two shots. Running. I blinked, and I was back at the motel. It felt like something important had happened, but no sense of time.”

  “Weird.”

  Sam nodded.

  Samantha laid into the horn.

  “She really thinks I’m going to let her drive?” Jason asked.

  “I’d like to see you try to stop her.”

  <><><>

  Three days later, they returned to the motel Samantha had booked in cash. Jason was covered in blood from where a stray brick had hit him in the head, and Sam was limping. Samantha went straight to the bathroom.

  “Dude. I don’t know how much more of this I can do,” Jason said. Sam rubbed his shin. Five demons. Samantha had tracked down and killed five demons in three days. He didn’t know what she was doing at night, but it wasn’t sleeping. The other side of his bed went undisturbed each night, and Jason said she wasn’t sleeping with him, either. Jason was sure she was sleeping in the bathtub or on the floor somewhere. Including the drive down, she was up to four and a half days without sleep, and Jason knew for a fact that wasn’t possible. Sam could feel her mind, even in his dreams. Frantic. Caged. Desperate. Jason threw himself into a chair and turned on the television. Sam knocked on the bathroom door.

  After a minute, she cracked it open.

  “Can we talk?” he asked. She looked at him suspiciously. He pushed harder, making it clear mentally that this was an entreaty, not a request. “Please.”

  She stepped back from the door and he looked quizzically at the bathroom. It was littered with bowls and papers and makeup. He had hoped he could talk her into going out and sitting somewhere quiet, but she revolted against the pull he gave toward the front door. He walked into the bathroom and she closed the door behind him.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “It’s what I answered.”

  “You’re not okay.”

  “Neither are you.”

  “What?”

  “You died.”

  “Yeah… I feel fine.”

  “I know where all of the major blood vessels are in your face and your arms and your neck,” she said. Sam paused.

  “Okay.”

  “When you die, you lose blood pressure and your skin loses pigment. I could see them through your skin.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I stitched your heart back together where a bullet blew it apart. I looked up how to tell if a valve is damaged by looking at it. And then how to repair them.”

  “Do I have pig parts in my heart?” Sam asked. He had read it somewhere.

  “It isn’t funny,” she said.

  “I know,” he said, reaching to rub her shoulder. She rolled away. “But it’s over.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m still grieving.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you died.”

  “But I’m not dead.”

  “So?”

  He couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t even know where to start.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Why? Why are you doing this?”

  She grunted, then clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, squeaking the same angry, desperate squeak that he had come to recognize as the point when they were going to hit the downslope on the roller coaster again. She flung the door to the bathroom open and charged into the room.

  “Jason, do you want me?”

  Jason looked over and blinked. Frowned. Translated. Frowned harder.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want me enough to never be with a different woman for the rest of your life?”

  “Not even close, Sweetheart. Sorry.”

  Samantha squeaked again, then turned on Sam.

  “Out. Out. Get out.”

  He scooted out of the bathroom and she slammed the door behind him.

  “What the hell, dude?” Jason asked. Sam shook his head, bewildered.

  Jason sat back on the chair, draping his arms over the back corners.

  “S’pose we need help?” he asked.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I think maybe we call Carter.”

  “She said no phones.”

  “I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

  Sam considered.

  “I have a different idea. Just a second.”

  He closed his eyes and focused, dropping back onto the bed so he didn’t have to balance himself upright as he searched for the right mental balance to throw his mind.

  He found himself in Abby’s apartment. Standing on her coffee table.

  She was looking around the room, as if she knew something had happened, but wasn’t particularly sure what.

  “Sam,” she said. “I’m assuming this means you two have decided you want help. I’m sending Carter. I already did, actually. While I have you here, though, I need to explain something to you.” She sat down on the couch, eyes still scanning the room. “When you have a vision, my ability to see what happens next just… dies. I can’t see what happens to you after this until I get to the point in time where you actually had your vision. There are too many things that could happen as a result of your vision. We’re both out picking information from the same timelines, and anything you do in reaction to what you see changes what I see. You go scattergun, Sam. I don’t know what happens next.” She paused. “I feel like I should offer you tea.” She frowned. “Actually, now that I say that, I think I’ll have a cup. The point is, triggering a vision will get my attention, but it doesn’t give me time to react, especially once you learn how to push yourself into the future on purpose. I wouldn’t have even known you were going to be here.”

  She waited. Sam wished he could answer her. He wanted to know if Samantha was going to be okay. Abby stood.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you any more. Carter should be there soon.”

  Sam opened his eyes. Jason was watching him blankly. Someone knocked on the door.

  “Dude,” Jason said, standing and letting Carter in.

  “Where is she?” Carter asked.

  Jason pointed. Carter snorted.

  “She got a permanent marker in there with her?”

  “What?”

  Carter walked up to Sam, peering up at him with squinted eyes. Sam squinted back.

  “Still on two legs,” Carter said. “Nicely done, at least.” He grinned. “I’m going to make a mage out of her, after all.”

  “You are not,” Samantha yelled from the bathroom. He laughed.

  “Well on your way, baby girl.”

  Samantha came out of the bathroom wearing different clothes than she had had five minutes earlier, and glared at Carter. She spat on her palms and rubbed them together, then held them up towards Sam’s face. He pulled away.

  “Man up,” she said, mentally jerking him forward. “Pull me a demon.”

  The vision was brutal and quick, and left him feeling only slightly off-balance. If nothing else, the last few days had made him a lot more immune to the after-effects of visions. She looked at him impatiently.

  “What did you see?”

  He pointed at the door.

  “A symbol on the door. A demon. He came in and you fought.”

  “You watched too long,” she said, then looked at the door. “Clever, though.”

  She disappeared into the bathroom again for a minute, then came back out with a bottle.

  “Mind if I use this?” she as
ked. Jason frowned. “It’s yours.”

  “Dark rot,” Carter said. “That is clever.”

  “Whatever,” Jason said. “Just as long as there aren’t any more bricks.”

  She drew a large, intricate pattern on the door with her fingers.

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “Demon trap. Dark rot blood draws them like flies.”

  Carter stood behind her, looking at it, then pulled her shirt up to her ribs. She lifted her arm out of the way as he rotated around her.

  “That’s…” Jason started, then, with a sound like he had swallowed his tongue, “whoa.”

  Samantha’s skin, where it was covered by cloth and in reach of her left hand, was covered in designs drawn in marker.

  “Sahnd is getting a bit rusty for you, there, isn’t it?” Carter asked. Samantha grunted. “You want me to draw Lahn on your back?”

  “Lahn is on my back,” she answered. Carter smiled.

  “What is all that?” Jason asked, getting up.

  “It’s something we do,” Carter said. “She won’t take tattoos, so she does it in ink.”

  The word ‘we’ triggered a happiness in her that surprised Sam.

  “You have tattoos?” Jason asked.

  “Why do you think he’s always in shirtsleeves?” Samantha asked. With a demon to hunt and kill, she was more focused on the surface, but Sam could still feel the writhing churn of chaos underneath it.

  “What’s a mage?” Sam asked.

  “Someone profound in all three branches of magic,” Carter said, glancing at Samantha with a grin.

  “Don’t start with me, Carter,” she said.

  “She calls it broad spectrum,” Sam said. He felt the spike of anger that he was pursuing it, but he wanted to understand. It had something to do with her resurrecting him.

  “Broad spectrum just means she’s talented. A mage is certified in all three.”

  “And I don’t practice, so I will never certify,” Samantha said. “Drop it.”

  “Defending against a proper, fully-manifest demon in the midst of a once-in-a-century spell requires just as much talent,” Carter said. “I could talk Nuri into, just with that. Who did you get to play the role of gray?” Samantha pointed at Jason, continuing to work.

  “Him?”

  “He was perfectly adequate.”

  “Gee,” Jason said.

  She finished her design, turning around. Carter examined it.