Page 10 of The Psychic and the Vampire

“I haven’t been to bed yet.” Ant pondered on what he could tell his sister. He’d been thinking about little else for most of the night. Bridget was his closest confidant, but she was always quick to point things out when Ant had made a mistake in his social interactions.And there’s a good chance I made a whole heap of mistakes last night.

“There was an incident last night at the reading,” Ant started slowly.

“What sort of incident?” Bridget immediately started to bristle. “Mike was there, wasn’t he? He was looking out for you?”

“He was by his car – he doesn’t like to contaminate the scene when I’ve found the area I need to take a reading from.” Ant knew that Mike didn’t like being anywhere near him when he was using his magic. But he wasn’t rude, he never teased Ant about the things he could see, and he spent two hours after they’d got back to the station taking down all the details Ant had found during his reading.

The shooting was a separate report, but Mike took down his observations for that as well, even though Ant didn’t have a lot to add to that. Ant didn’t expect the two people involved in the shooting would be found in a hurry, and Mike wasn’t overly hopeful either, but he still put in the hard yards regarding taking the report in the first place. It was four in the morning when Ant finally got home, and he still couldn’t sleep – nothing unusual there. Insomnia and Ant were solid friends.

“Ant, you’re not giving me anything but half answers here. What happened? Were you hurt? Speaking of which, where’s Able? Did he get hurt?” Bridget was looking under the table.

“No, no, neither one of us got hurt, and Able’s having a siesta on the back porch. You know how he likes the sun there in the morning and he’d had a long night alongside me.”I’m going to have to tell her something.“I was just finishing my reading of the crime scene when someone took a shot at us – either me or Able, I’m not sure who but we’re fine,” he emphasized again. “We are absolutely fine. The bullet didn’t reach us.”

“You got shot at? And all you can say is the. Bullet. Didn’t. Reach. Us.” Bridget let out a long breath. “Only you coulddescribe a shooting like that. What do you mean the bullet didn’t reach you? Did you see it fall on the ground in front of you? Did it whiz past your ear? Did some hero in a cape fly past and pluck it out of the air? What the hell, Ant? Give me details.”

Sometimes Bridget just made no sense at all – at least in Ant’s mind. “He wasn’t wearing a cape. I’m sure I would’ve noticed something like that.”

“What do you meanhewasn’t wearing a cape? Who wasn’t wearing a cape?”

“Viktor. The man who caught the bullet. He was wearing a suit, and you know, one of those long overcoats that cost a fortune.” Ant shook his head. “Definitely no cape, I’m sure of it, and he didn’t fly. He ran. He was like a blur he moved so fast. Zing. Zing.”

To his surprise, Bridget leaned over and banged her head on the table. Twice.

“Ouch, why did you do that?” There were times when Ant thought he had a handle on typical behavior, but then Bridget would come along and show him he still had a long way to go.

“Ant.” Bridget looked up, even though she was still hunched over the table. She glared at him. “Who the hell is Viktor?”

“My stalker?” Ant winced as Bridget banged her head on the table again.

“I haven’t had enough coffee for this,” Bridget moaned into the tabletop. “Seriously, Ant. I need coffee, now.”

“You would probably feel better if you didn’t keep banging your head on the table.” Ant got up, keeping hold of his mug. He could do with a refill. By the time he returned to the table with two fresh mugs of coffee, Bridget was sitting upright again. She hada bit of a red mark on her head, but Ant didn’t think she’d want him pointing it out.

He'd barely sat down again, when Bridget waved her forefinger at him. “As your older sister, wouldn’t you say I’ve always looked out for you as best as I can?”

Ant nodded. “You do an excellent job, thank you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me you had a stalker?”

“Because you wouldn’t like it.” Ant took a hurried sip of his coffee. Bridget’s look implied that wasn’t good enough. “He wasn’t a bad stalker. More like someone following me around because they were curious about me. You know I can tell from the energies what a person is feeling about me, and nothing in the energies said he was going to hurt me.”

He shrugged and yawned, covering his mouth with his hand because Bridget had told him that was the polite thing to do. “I figured he’d get bored sooner or later. You said yourself I bore my students, and it’s not like I’m the life and soul of a party. I don’t even go to parties. It made sense to me that this person was just curious and would stop following me around whenever that curiosity had been satisfied. I was surprised it’s lasted this long, truth be told.”

“Stalkers are dangerous,” Bridget hissed. “Men and women all over the world are terrorized by stalkers every day. Your power relates to things that have already happened. You don’t know that person wasn’t following you around so they could learn your routine – looking for the perfect time to kill you on a future date.”

“But see.”Yes. Finally. Ant had an answer for that. “If it hadn’t been for my stalker I would’ve been dead or damaged last night, or Able would’ve been, which is just as bad, but because I hada stalker, he saved me from that bullet. I told you that. It was a good thing he was there.”

“Maybe he was pissed off that someone else was trying to kill the person he’d been sizing up as his next victim. Did you ever think about that?”

“No.” Ant frowned as he took another sip of his coffee. “Who would think a thing like that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Bridget flung her hands in the air. “Maybe your stalker?”

“Viktor isn’t trying to kill me.” Ant was sure about that. Sort of. Almost sure. No, he was definitely sure.

“I swear you’re going to give me a heart attack.” Bridget sighed. “Okay, then Ant. You tell me. How do you know that this Viktor person won’t kill you? How can you know for sure?”

“I’m almost certain we’re fated mates,” Ant said slowly. “I did a short read on him, after he caught the bullet for me, and my magic said he was definitely mine.”

---