Page 7 of The Psychic and the Vampire

So there was that.

But the otherworry, although worry was perhaps too strong a word because Viktor wasn’t inclined to worry about anything, but the otherconcernwas that Viktor was starting to get an awareness of where the psychic was, even when he couldn’t see him. That wasn’t normal for him at all.

Case in point, when he was following the police officer out to where he’d arranged to meet the psychic, from a safe distance of course, Viktor had his turn signal going before the officer’s back lights showed he was turning. Viktor wasn’t psychic, so in theory, he shouldn’t have been able to know where the officer was going… even though in that instance, he was being instinctively moved in a specific direction.

And no matter how hard he tried, which admittedly wasn’t very hard, Viktor seemed to be obsessed with watching the slender man with the innocent eyes.Bordering on obsessed,he corrected himself. In his long life, Viktor couldn’t claim to be obsessed about anything or anyone. That wasn’t in his nature either.

But look at him now. He’s sitting on the ground, cross-legged, with his damned eyes closed in the middle of freaking nowhere. What the hell is he doing?

Viktor had to know. He had to get closer, and even though he knew he was taking a risk, because that psychic did seem to know when he was around, Viktor was confident no one else would know – like Mike the police officer or the psychic’s dog. In his head he should be safe enough because from what he could see, the psychic wasn’t paying any attention to his surroundings at all.

Flitting from tree to tree, Viktor moved steadily closer.

/~/~/~/~/

You have the worst timing, stalker buddy.

Ant kept his eyes closed. He had found the spot a body had been dumped – that wasn’t the issue. But Mike was hoping he could see enough about the person who dumped the poor victim so the police could find out leads about where she was actually murdered and by who. As Mike was one of the good guys who’d always treated Ant fairly, he’d been happy to give it a try.

Reading wasn’t an exact science. Ant knew its limitations more than anyone. Simply because he could see things as if they were happening in that moment – like watching a scene on a movie screen – he was only seeing a moment, a snapshot in time. Ant didn’t have context for anything he was viewing. He had no idea what might have happened ten minutes before the event or afterward, unless those events happened at the place he was reading. Admittedly, there were times that spirits in an area could be chatty, but Ant never relied on them to be around.

He could only see what he could see and with a body dump, there usually wasn’t much to see, unless the perpetrator had some form of signature ritual he performed once the body was left. That didn’t seem to be the case in this instance, so Ant focused on as many details as possible.

The person the police was looking for was male. He was wearing a large overcoat – an item that struck Ant as strange, not so much the newness of the garment, but that the man was wearing it at all. Mike had already told him the body had been found only two days before. The spring evenings weren’t that cold – definitely not cold enough to warrant such a large coat.

Unless he’s hiding his size and bulk underneath it.Ant had seen things like that before. As the man got “closer” to where Antwas sitting, he paid more attention to wrists and shoes.Skinny wrists, long thin fingers, and large boots. Work boots,Ant added to his mental notes. The boots also appeared to be brand new. So the man was tall, but not as bulky as his coat suggested.

The man’s movements were economical. He didn’t seem to be anxious or worried he might be seen, although that gave Ant another question – how did the man know where he was walking? He wasn’t carrying any visible form of light, which meant he was either paranormal and didn’t need light to see in the dark, or he was so familiar with the area, he was confident in where he was going.

It was almost impossible for Ant to see the man’s face. The collar of the overcoat was turned up, the man was wearing a scarf that covered the bottom half of his face. A beanie, pulled low over his features, did a very good job of hiding his hair. All Ant could see were dark bushy eyebrows, which may or may not be fake – they looked fake.He’s done this before.Ant wasn’t sure where that awareness came from, but he trusted it.

The woman’s body had been carried in a wide dark-green tarp, made of a sturdy cloth or canvas material - it didn’t rustle like the plastic based ones did. The man wasn’t in a hurry, and there were no signs of any rituals involved. Bending over, the man placed the body on the ground, unrolled the tarp until the body was free, and then straightened up as he gathered the covering into a messy bundle before shoving it under his arm.

He didn’t even look at the body, or look around at all, as he strode away from the scene, going back the way he came.Which meant he had to have a car parked somewhere close by.Ant only knew that because there were no houses anywhere within a mile of the dumping site.

Ant waited, holding the scene in his mind’s eye a moment longer. There had been times in readings he’d done in the past where the perpetrator had come back, or someone else had come across the scene. But this time there was nothing. Just the regular noises of a remote area at night slowly returning to a new normal that included a body discarded on the dirt.

The woman’s spirit was not around. She didn’t appear from the body during the dumping, and Ant hadn’t expected it to. Her spirit, if it hadn’t moved on, would be where her life was first taken and that wasn’t in the woodlands. Ant inhaled slowly, reaching for Able, who would be sitting down beside him. Touching the fur was his brain’s signal it was time to return to the present.

His fingers had just touched the fur when Able jumped to his feet and started barking. Ant’s eyes flew open as he heard a crack and a whine, and then a blur passed in front of his eyes and someone landed on him with a decided thump, knocking him back on the damp grass.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. That damn bullet burned my fingers.”

“Bullet? Someone was trying to kill me?” Ant met stormy ice-blue eyes he remembered from the courtroom, although they were now filled with pain. “Can you move please? I can barely breathe. Able, no, back off,” he added quickly, but he was too late. Clearly Able didn’t think the man was moving fast enough, and Ant winced as he saw his dog’s teeth disappear into his savior’s pants leg.

Chapter Six

“This is what I get for trying to save someone.” Viktor jumped up, shaking his burned hand, taking care not to drop the bullet and then peering around at where his pants now had holes in. Tooth marks that were left by a dog who was now smugly sitting under the psychic’s arm, now the psychic was sitting back up again. “I should’ve just let the bullet hit you or your dog, because believe me, that’s where the gun was aimed, and maybe then I wouldn’t have gotten bitten or burned. Damn it, that smarts.”

“I heard a shot.” Mike, the police officer, came running over, his phone in one hand and his gun in the other. “Ant, are you all right?”

“Excuse me. He wasn’t the one who got hurt.” Viktor glared at the officer. “In case you were wondering, the shot came from that way.” He pointed at a spot between the trees. “Don’t you think you should go and see if anyone is still there, waiting to finish the job?”

“They’re not there anymore,” Ant said slowly, appearing to be looking off into the distance. “They had a car waiting about fifty yards on the other side of the trees. A light blue Honda hatchback. They’re already on their way back to town.”

“I’ll call it in. Maybe the guys at the office can catch them before they get there.” Mike ran back in the direction of his car.

“You’re very distracting.”

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