Page 4 of The Psychic and the Vampire

“I assume you’ll have Banks take care of him. If I turn up at the police station, the police are going to know within five seconds that he has ties to the family. Might be an idea to let your cousin know not to visit him either.”

“Oh, gods. Annie’s going to be crying buckets if her man goes to jail for anything less than murder. Are you sure we can’t get the psychic to change his mind? Convince him he ‘saw’ details of a separate case?”

Viktor hated that Tony used air quotes as if that made him seem more intelligent. “You’d be better using your influence on Banks and let him know he needs to straighten out if he wants your work in future. The man crumbled so badly in the courtroom he embarrassed himself.

“He would’ve been notified a psychic was going to testify. He had a full day to plan his cross examination, which he insisted on, when he should’ve just kept his mouth shut. All he did was insult the man in question, very poorly I might add, and then collapse into his seat moaning about how he wanted a recess when thatdidn’t work. If that’s the best representation your money can buy…”

“Pay Banks a visit tonight.” Tony glowered. “Remind him if Duncan talks, it’ll be his balls in a sling as well as Duncan’s.”

Oh, no. Viktor wasn’t touching that with a ten foot pole. He’d only gone to the court in the first place because he wanted to see how badly Tony could be in the shit. “You’ll have to send Giorgio. I’ve got things to do. I need to feed.” He didn’t but Tony had no idea how often, or not, a vampire had to take in blood.

Viktor also couldn’t be blamed if Tony got the idea that Viktor had to hunt for his sustenance. Viktor hadn’t done that in at least fifty years, but telling Tony he needed to take sustenance gave him a night off at least once a week. Personally, his feeding involved a nicely heated glass of the red stuff he kept stored in a private refrigerator while he was stretched out in his favorite armchair reading a book.

“Feed on the lawyer. That should shut him up.”

“I’ve got tastes, and he doesn’t have the right blood type for me. You know if you hadn’t been wildly intoxicated and took it into your head to go chasing a man with a sword through the park, you wouldn’t be having these problems. What the hell were you thinking?” Viktor was still trying to wrap his head around that.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Tony pouted. He was the boss of the largest gang on the West Coast, and he still pouted like a two-year-old if his fun was taken away from him. “I thought the man was an unhoused person no one would care about. I wanted to know what it was like to hunt someone. You know, the same thing you do at least once a week.”

“I do not go chasing random innocents through a park in the middle of the night brandishing a bloody sword. Seriously, I think that shit you’re snorting is killing off your brain cells.”Viktor was done with the conversation. “I’ll be back by lunch tomorrow. Try not to kill anyone else, at least until the police have someone in jail for the Fallows murder.”

“I think you’re forgetting who the boss of this family is,” Tony snarled.

“No.” Viktor let his eyes bleed red and saw Tony’s flinch. “I haven’t forgotten, but if you want to throw away your life by behaving like an idiot, then there’s going to come a time real soon when I’m just going to step back and wash my hands of this life and you. You’ve got some good deals going on, you’re making bank every single day. Ask yourself who’s responsible for making sure that all runs smoothly, allowing you time for your women and pleasurable activities.

“If you’re really that stupid to throw it all away because you’ve got some ridiculous paranormal envy going on, then don’t be surprised if you turn around one day and find I’m not guarding your back the way you thought I should be. I’m here by choice, not because I have to be.” Viktor strode toward the door. “I’ll check in by lunch tomorrow.”

“Happy hunting, blood sucker.”

Viktor rolled his eyes at the insult and let himself out of the room.

Remind me why I’m here again?The problem was, he really wasn’t sure. Striding back through the house, Viktor heard someone calling his name, but he ignored it. The startling eyes and fragile innocence of the psychic came into his mind unbidden. Suddenly, Viktor thought about Tony’s last words about hunting.Maybe it’s time to hunt down a psychic.Because if there was one thing Viktor knew as a fact – that man was proving difficult to forget, and he was determined to find out why.

Chapter Three

Ant knew he was being watched. One advantage of having the powers he did meant he usually had someone from the other side letting him know if he had attracted unwanted attention, if his magic didn’t do it for him. His dog Able, who was his almost constant companion, was another source of alarm for Ant, keeping him safe and making most people think twice before they tried to give him a hard time.

As he went about his days, doing his own thing, Ant wasn’t particularly worried. People who were antagonistic toward him gave off a completely different energy to someone who might be attracted to him or simply curious about who he was and what he could do. Ant couldn’t get a definitive handle on what his stalker was feeling – the energies seemed to fluctuate between attraction, curiosity, and something else Ant hadn’t come across before.

It was tempting to talk to Bridget about it. She would be furious if she found out Ant had kept something like that to himself for longer than an hour, but gut instinct had Ant holding back. It wasn’t often he had something going on that was totally personal to him, and while other people might scoff, he did have confidence in his abilities to keep himself safe.

Bridget helped him out with the legal and administrative sides of his business, and Able was his four-footed companion and security guard. But Ant was an independent and fully functioning adult – despite what Bridget said at times.

So he went to a luncheon with friends he used to study with, where he had an agreeable time.

He also conducted a couple of lectures at the local branch of the Mage Academy, explaining to students how their exam resultswould impact their future employment. Ant didn’t do that sort of thing very often, but as he was a level twelve mage, he was expected to contribute back to the magical community.

Privately, a couple of the other tutors suggested if he spoke more about the work he did for the police, then his classes would be attended by more students, but there was a good reason Ant smiled sweetly at their advice and kept doing what he was doing. He didn’t want students following him and pestering him with questions about cases he didn’t have the right to discuss. Far better, in his opinion, to keep his lectures dry and boring, talking about test scores and the wide range of good works mages could do once they had reached certain levels of proficiency.

“Do you deliberately set out to bore you students to tears?” Bridget asked as they left his last class. “Two of the students in there were half-asleep and the others were watching your ass as you left the room. They’re not learning anything.”

She’d swung by to pick him up for dinner. She had a new beau, or rather she had a gentleman friend she wanted Ant to meet. In other words, she wanted to know what sort of vibe her brother got from her prospective love interest. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him to do that, and Ant hoped her new friend could keep any negative vibes to himself until after they’d eaten. He was hungry.

“Students need to learn that life as a working mage is not all police chases and murder scenes,” Ant said, clicking his fingers at Able who was walking by his side. “Go on, boy. I know you need to stretch your legs.”

Able took off at a run, and Ant and Bridget loitered by the edge of the grass area while he did his business. “These students, they come into school with visions of what life could be like if we were in a fictional novel. The young men dream of sweeping somewoman off her feet, rescuing her from a murderous fiend. The women who attend the classes all believe they’re going to form partnerships with police officers, and while I’m not saying some of our local police officers aren’t cute, because they are, they are also usually married, and a lot of them prefer to investigate their cases following clues instead of calling in a psychic.”

“The books you’ve been reading are outdated.” Bridget laughed. “The romances now feature billionaires or European mafia bosses, swept away by the young common girl with her innocent smile.” She showed her teeth. “Do you think I’d pass?”

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