Page 6 of The Psychic and the Vampire

He chuckled, hand on heart. “I confess I’m a bit of a detective buff in my spare time. Nothing much in the way of field experience of course, but I have read extensively on the subject including case notes dating back the past hundred years. If you don’t mind me saying so, you are a very attractive young man. Have you ever considered taking on a mentor? Someone a little older than yourself, who can help guide your career…”

“Excuse me, can you tell me who ordered the fish and the soup, please?” Jenny, one of the servers and daughter of the owners smiled at Bridget.

“I’ll take one of the soups, thank you.” Bridget was clearly fuming.

“Bridget, I said the soup was for Doctor Channon,” Gregory protested. “I ordered you the fish.”

“I’m allergic to fish, you asshole.” Picking up the bowl of soup Jenny had placed in front of her, Bridget threw it. The bowl landed on the table, it’s contents splashing all over Gregory’s suit. “That’s for calling me fat.” She reached across and grabbed the second bowl from Ant’s place settings and threw that, too. “That’s for hitting on my brother.”

Gregory was dripping with the soup by this time – chunks of meat, sauce, and carrot falling off his jacket. “Bridget!”

“Don’t you ‘Bridget’ me in that tone of voice.” Getting up, Bridget smiled at Jenny. “I’ll take the fish dish, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Go right ahead.” Jenny’s eyes were dancing.

Taking the plate, Bridget stormed around the table.

“Don’t throw it, don’t throw it.” Gregory ducked, his arms raised trying to protect his head.

“I wasn’t going to throw it. But you can take your lightly steamed fish dish, with its naked salad, and choke on it.” Swiping the fish off the plate, Bridget mashed it into Gregory’s face before tipping the salad greens over his head. “I can’t believe you were chatting me up just so you could get close to my brother. You absolute asshole.”

“Here, here.” Ant stood up and clapped, jolting when the other patrons in the restaurant also joined in. Even Able gave a single encouraging bark. “Jenny, dear, can you please charge this meal to my card, and perhaps find Bridget and me another table? I don’t think Gregory is staying.”

“But Doctor Channon, Anthony, please. I just wanted to talk to you. I have so many ideas. We’d be so good together.”

“Able. Clean up.” Ant clicked his fingers, taking Bridget’s arm as the dog sprung into action. Jumping up on the table, Able started cleaning up the fish and soup left on the cloth, wagging his tail in Gregory’s face, before turning his attention to the food all over the man’s suit.

There might have been screams of “He’ll eat me, the beast. He’s eating me,” before there was a sound of a chair crashing, feet running, and the slam of the door as Gregory left. Ant ignored it all. He knew Able wouldn’t do anything like that. He was a well behaved dog.

“So, do we want steak tonight, or is this a situation where you want to eat dessert first?” he asked his sister.

“Whatever you want is on the house,” Jenny said, showing them to another table. “Dad said that’s the best entertainment he’s had in here all year.”

“Then we’ll definitely have steak and tiramisu for afterward,” Bridget said as she leaned on Ant’s shoulder. “Why do I do this to myself? Why?”

“This was one of your more amusing choices,” Ant said, patting his sister’s hair. “Remember Evan? Now come on and let’s eat. Your love life might be sorted, but I still have a scene walkthrough to do tonight.”

“Do you think I’ll ever meet someone who is right for me?” Bridget smiled her thanks at Jenny as she took her seat.

“Yep.” Ant sat opposite her, and Able crawled under the table.

“Is that a promise from the other side?”

“Call it intuition.” Ant grinned and when Bridget glared at him, he winked.

Chapter Five

Does this guy have absolutely no respect for his own safety?

Peering from the cover offered by the night and some handy trees, Viktor shook his head.He’s not paying any attention to where he’s walking, and that officer is just leaning on the car, not helping him or watching him at all, too busy playing on his phone and puffing on his cigarette.

Viktor had heard the psychic say he was going to dinner with his sister, so he used that time to shoot back to Tony’s, show his face, throw around a few minor orders, making sure he was moving fast enough he didn’t actually get dragged into anything before disappearing again. Tony was still in bed, so it was easy to do. If he asked why Viktor wasn’t in later in the evening, there were enough people who could say he’d been and gone.

He wasn’t sure where the murder scene was that the psychic was investigating, but the psychic had been careless, mentioning the name of the policeman he was meeting. It was a simple matter for Viktor, who knew all of the police officers in town, to simply loiter outside of the precinct and follow Mike to the meeting place.

Although Viktor was starting to get a nagging feeling his stalking wasn’t doing him any favors, or rather, it seemed to have some unexpected impacts on him personally.

For one thing, there were a couple of incidences where the psychic seemed to be aware when he was around, which shouldn’t have been possible. Viktor was over eight hundred years old. His gift, something all vampires got when they reached five hundred years, was that of invisibility, among other things. No one should be able to sense him if he didn’t want to be seen. He could walk into the middle of a wolf shifter pack and noone would know he was there – even his scent was masked when he couldn’t be seen.

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