Soul Sucker (2 page)

He nodded, a beatific smile on his face. “Sue their asses. I like that. And you’ll take care of that...thing?”

“Yes, I will. I promise.”

He sighed. “Okay, then.”

She pushed power into his mind, sealing in the new memories and eradicating all traces of the old, and he fell into a more natural sleep. Ella watched him for a while and then rose to her feet and walked quietly toward the door.

Jose looked up as she approached the nurse’s station. “How’s Mr. Knight doing?”

She took off her white coat. “Much better. He’s going to be mad with our great city parks when he wakes up, but no longer babbling about things that aren’t there. Concussion does weird things to folks doesn’t it?”

“Sure does.” Jose handed her a cup of hot chocolate from the vending machine. “Here you go. I know you need your sugar.”

“Thanks.” He was far more observant than most of his team, and that was something she needed to keep an eye on for her own security. Taking and replacing people’s memories was actually quite draining and she really did need energy.

He watched her until she finished the scalding hot drink and threw the cup in the trash. “You free for dinner one night this week?”

She considered his familiar face. He was far too nice to hook up with for just a night and far too dangerous to contemplate having a relationship with. She wouldn’t want to lie to him about exactly what she was, and what kind of work she really did. It just wouldn’t be fair. Some part of her yearned to say yes and to act like any normal, unattached woman, but it would be both pointless and cruel.

“Sorry, Jose. I wish I could.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’ve already got a boyfriend, right?”

She laughed. “Well I wouldn’t actually say that. But I’m definitely spoken for.”

“Shame.”

She patted his shoulder. “Much better if we stay friends. We’ll always be able to look each other in the eye. I watch the soaps. You know how these workplace romances always end.”

“I suppose you’re right, but I’m going to keep asking.”

“Sure.” She winked at him and headed for the exit. “Have a good one.”

She called Feehan on her cell, related her conversation with Mr. Knight and got the okay to travel on to Golden Gate Park and confront the miscreant. At the bottom of Mission she spotted one of the tourist buses heading out that way and hopped on board. She sat on the open-top deck and let the stream of chatter and excitement of the other passengers wash over her as she focused on what she needed to do next.

It was easy enough to find the spot where Mr. Knight had met his unpleasant sunflower. The grass was trampled and bits of leaves floated around on the breeze. The biggest giveaway for Ella was the hint of Otherworld power she sensed still hanging in the air. She turned around in a slow circle before setting her gaze on a group of sunflowers huddled against a brick wall.

“SBLE. Show yourselves.”

Nothing so much as rustled a leaf so she held up her badge. “SBLE. I know you’re there. Come out and we’ll settle this right now.”

She waited, one hand on her weapon, as the four young Garden Fae disentangled themselves from the plants and slowly revealed their true form. With their yellow eyes and greenish skin and hair they blended far too well with the foliage.

“Which one of you interacted with the human?”

They all just stared blankly at her. Sometimes it was uncanny how much they resembled their human counterparts during adolescence.

She snapped her fingers, letting a little of the Otherworld energy signature she’d taken from Mr. Knight bounce off the sullen Fae. “All I have to do is get close and I’ll know exactly which one of you did it. Do you want me to get close?” She focused on the one with the guiltiest face. “Are you really going to let all your buddies take the blame?”

The Fae she’d targeted stepped forward. “It was me. So
makking
what?”

“You have violated the conditions of your visit to the human world. You’re only allowed to visit if you don’t interfere with anyone.”

He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I was just having a laugh.”

“By scaring the shit out of a human?”

He grinned, showing rows of sharp teeth. “I let him live, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but the treaty between our two worlds states that you shouldn’t have made yourself known to him in the first place.”

“It was just a joke. Humans come to Otherworld all the time and
makk
about with us.”

“Bullshit. Most humans who end up in Otherworld have been trapped there by your kind.”

“The empath college is full of stupid humans.”

“Exactly. Do you think any of us
liked
being stuck there?”

He glanced back at his companions as if looking for support. “You don’t need to do anything about this, right?”

She studied them until they began to fidget. “The human ended up in the hospital so there is already a record of this incident in the system. Officially I should bust all your asses, but I’m in a good mood, so I’ll let you off if you instantly return to Otherworld.” She locked eyes with the tallest Fae. “Deal?”

One of the other Fae nudged him, then muttered something inaudible.

Ella raised her eyebrows. “You have ten seconds to make up your minds before I call in backup.”

“All right, we’re leaving.” The Fae growled. “Humans are pathetic anyway.”

“Sure, remember that. It will stand you in good stead in the future.”

He stared her down as they started to dissolve into the air, his last words a hiss. “Good riddance,
soul
sucker
.”

She gave him the finger and kept smiling. His foul name for her kind didn’t bother her, especially when he hadn’t even had the balls to say it to her face. And there was some element of truth in the tag. She did steal part of a person’s essence when she took their memories, which was why most of Otherworld feared her as much as humans feared them.

With a sigh, she surveyed the now tranquil scene, making sure the young Fae had really gone. They were even more arrogant than human teenagers and far more dangerous because they had magic to add to the usual craziness. She tried to give the young ones a break. With a lifespan of centuries, they had a lot more time to grow up and learn from their mistakes.

The kinder word for what she did was
gatekeeper
. When the human government realized they couldn’t stop Otherworld creatures from entering their space, they’d signed a treaty to regulate those visits, using the abilities of their empaths to seek out and police the Otherworld “guests.”

She contemplated the trek back to her office and the paperwork that awaited her. Human computers didn’t work in Otherworld, so she had to type everything up on her laptop, and then print it out to send to the authorities on the other side. Even though she hadn’t taken names or officially identified the Fae, she still had to explain what had happened to Mr. Knight, and arrange for his compensation payment from the “parks” department. The wind picked up and Ella shivered. She wasn’t waiting for the bus. The department would just have to pick up the tab for a taxi.

She’d hardly cleared the park before her cell went off and Feehan’s name flashed up. Why couldn’t the man just let her return to the office before he bothered her again? Despite her reluctance, she took the call.

“Ella? You need to get back here asap.”

“I’m already on my way, boss. What’s up?” She braced herself for another so-called emergency. Feehan still hadn’t worked out that in the SBLE there were emergencies and then there were
catastrophes
that could alter the course of history. She was far more interested in the latter.

“There’s been a murder.”

She felt her derisive smile fade. “What kind of murder?”

“Possibly an empath.”

Shit
. She immediately thought about her colleagues. “In San Francisco?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you in the lobby at Market and we’ll take it from there.”

Chapter Two

“The police received a disturbance call at ten this morning from the neighbors, and went to the apartment to check it out.” Ella nodded as Feehan joined her in the unmarked SBLE car and filled her in on the details. “After trying the polite knock-knock route, and failure to locate the building super, they broke down the door and found the victim lying on her couch. Luckily, one of the more sensitive cops noticed the bad psychic atmosphere and also called us.”

“She was already dead?”

“Yeah. Music loud enough to shake the whole building, clothes everywhere, and bottles of alcohol littering the carpet.”

Ella nodded, her throat tight as they pulled up outside the new high-rise apartment block just off one of the entrances to the Bay Bridge. It must have been a quiet day in the city because the police and a paramedic crew were already there. Lights flashing, crime-scene tape fluttering in the breeze and several personnel filling the sidewalk. Feehan opened his window and they were waved through to park beside the waiting ambulance.

She stared up at the glass building. Something from Otherworld had been near or in the space; she could sense the dark magic in her bones.

Feehan bumped into her and she jumped. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” she managed. “Are we going up?”

“Yes, I’ve already cleared it with the necessary authorities.”

She rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor in silence while Feehan yakked into his cell phone. She didn’t like elevators and she didn’t like the vibe she was getting at all. There was a sense of immense psychic power laced with a triumphant glee that made her want to puke. Whatever had murdered the woman wasn’t quite human. She wasn’t surprised that someone had picked up on it and called for help. Despite the government officially failing to recognize the SBLE, most first responders were more than willing to pass the difficult cases over to them.

As usual, the crime scene was busy. Ella stood back and viewed the setting as objectively as she could. The victim was sprawled naked on the couch, arms thrown out, her expression fixed in a grimace that could have been either horror or extreme pleasure. Or both.

One of the cops started talking to Feehan. Apparently, there were no obvious wounds on the body apart from a little blood coming from the woman’s ears, nose and mouth. She’d been drinking, and there were no signs of an intruder.

The older female cop lowered her voice. “I’m the one who called you guys.” She shivered. “I just got a real bad feeling about this. I’ve learned to listen to my gut.”

Feehan nodded. “Thanks. We appreciate it.”

Ella guessed the victim was in her mid-twenties, and tried to think if she recognized her. There weren’t that many empaths in the Bay Area, but the face wasn’t familiar. She took a hesitant step forward, and shuddered as the residue of the killer’s pleasure swept over her.

Feehan appeared beside her again. “We need you to read her before it’s too late. I’m going to get them to clear out and give you some space, okay?”

She nodded. She hated this part of her job. Her kind spent a huge amount of time and energy building shields to protect themselves from the psychic shit they accumulated. Probing another empath’s mind, even that of a dead empath, was like trying to pry open a spoiled clam and usually gave her the empath equivalent of food poisoning.

When the noise died down, she picked her way through the debris and knelt beside the brown leather couch. She took her time studying the dead woman’s face, carefully opening her senses to anything that still hung around polluting the atmosphere. The victim definitely was an empath.
Shit
. Whatever had killed her had a very distinctive signature, which was both good and bad. It made the murderer easier to track, but indicated a level of power that didn’t care about shielding itself.

Ella took hold of the victim’s cold hand and centered herself on the rapidly disappearing internal psychic signature. Whoever this female was, she hadn’t bothered keeping her shields up to the high standards demanded by the SBLE. Despite feeling like she was crawling through barbed wire, Ella was able to get into her mind rather easily.

Rather too easily. There was nothing there, nothing but a confused mass of fear and joy, and—what was that—relief? Was that the only overriding emotion left? And did that mean the empath had been glad to die by the end?

Shaking her head, she sat back on her heels and tried again. She concentrated harder this time, opening herself wider, but now all she sensed were her own signals bouncing back at her like radar.

“Did you get anything?” Feehan crouched down beside her.

Ella released the dead woman’s hand and turned to stare at her perspiring boss. “Not really.”

His shoulders slumped. “No last image of the killer, no sense that the victim could identify the murderer?”

“It’s way worse than that. It’s as though all her memories and abilities were sucked out of her head.”

Feehan went still. “Seriously?”

Ella rose and glanced at the police officers filling the doorway. “Can we talk about it back at the office? I don’t want these guys hearing anything they shouldn’t. They already think I’m one of those nutty TV psychics who makes shit up, and they barely tolerate me being here.”

“Sure. As long as there’s nothing else you need to see.”

She kept moving. “They’ll send everything over to us, right? We can gather the team together and talk about it then.”

Didn’t he know that she needed to get out of there? Sometimes she wondered who thought it a good idea to have empaths answering to government employees who didn’t understand the immense pressure such encounters put on their staff. When it came down to it, empaths scared the crap out of humans. She saw it every time Feehan looked at her.

Without another word, she pushed through the group of cops and headed for the elevators. The thought of being trapped with Feehan or any other normal human even for two minutes in a tin box made her veer toward the emergency stairs.

“I’ll see you by the car,” she shouted, opening the heavy fire door and then starting down the brightly lit but barren concrete staircase. Her flip-flops smacked against the steps and echoed in the stairwell. About halfway down, she came to a stop. The murderer had used the stairs. She could smell him, and his triumph. So he hadn’t magically shifted in or out of the apartment, which meant it was unlikely he was Fae.

She deliberately opened her senses to his distinctive signature, and shuddered as she met his meticulously constructed mental barriers. He wanted her to see his pleasure at the murder, but nothing more. And the killer was male. She was now sure of that. After checking her own mental shields, she continued down the stairs and out through the lobby into the parking lot.

Feehan waited for her by the car, his expression anxious. The roar of traffic from the Bay Bridge above almost drowned out the police sirens, but not quite. Dirt shimmered and danced on the metal roofs of the vehicles making everything seem out of focus.

“I think the murderer is an Otherworld male and he entered and exited the building using the stairs,” she said quietly. “I sensed him there.” She scanned the parking lot. “So it’s possible he either drove himself here, or used an Otherworld portal.”

Feehan nodded. “I’ll go tell the police to check out the vehicles in the parking lot, and that we’re pretty sure we’re looking for a male killer.” He hesitated. “They’re not convinced it was a murder, by the way.”

“Um, what woman commits suicide
naked
? When I go, I’m wearing my best fancy underwear and full makeup.”

Feehan stuttered something incoherent.

“They just don’t want to be bothered because they hate the paperwork as much as we do.” Ella fished out her cell phone. “I’ll check the Otherworld app for current portal locations.”

Like most things that belonged to that screwed up place, the entrance and exits to Otherworld moved around seemingly on a whim. It had taken years to persuade the Otherworld government to share the latest locations with their human counterparts, and even longer for the Fae nerds to come up with an application that worked with human technology.

She clicked on the app and waited for her phone to recognize where she was. Two red circles flashed on the map, one close to the Bay Bridge and the other by the ballpark at the end of Embarcadero. If the murderer had come from Otherworld, he’d had an easy journey back. And if he was a baseball fan and had chosen the portal farther away, the crowds streaming out of the park would have provided a perfect screen for his murderous activities.

Feehan had left the engine running, so she got in the air-conditioned car and briefly closed her eyes. She’d kill for a soda or something smothered in chocolate. Lately, it seemed to take longer and longer for her to recover from an encounter with Otherworld. But she was about to turn twenty-seven, and everyone knew that was about the limit of an empath’s ability to remain sane and do their job properly. It was also probably why Feehan was handling her with kid gloves.

A rush of movement outside the car caught her attention, and she watched as the body was brought out and loaded into the ambulance. They’d eventually take it to the morgue under the SBLE offices, and get as much information as possible to help the team detect the killer. Ella tried to think about the woman and whether she’d seen her before, but she couldn’t recall a single memory.

Perhaps her mind was so full of psychic shit that her real memories were being erased... She opened her eyes. That was
not
going to happen. She was going to get through this without going nuts or following stupid government procedure.

“You ready to head back, Ella?”

“Sure, boss.”

Feehan got into the car beside her. He waited for the ambulance to pull out ahead of them, and then followed along behind, acknowledging the offhand waves of the police officers still gathered around the entrance to the building. She didn’t bother. If Feehan thought the way to get promoted was through developing a good relationship with the San Francisco police department, he’d soon learn the error of his ways.

Feehan glanced at her again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m just thirsty.” She opened her eyes wide at him. “What’s up? Are you worried I’m losing it?”

To his credit he didn’t back down. “You are almost twenty-seven. I understand that can be a difficult time for an empath.” He clicked on his turn signal, turned under the Bay Bridge and they were swallowed in the roaring tunnellike darkness. “Have you received your notification letter from Otherworld yet?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, it is one solution to your...issues.”

“My
issues
?” She glared at him. “A stupid one. I think I’d rather go nuts.”

“I doubt that.”

“And what would you know about it, boss?”

They emerged from under the bridge into glaring sun and the usual stationary traffic. “Quite a lot, actually,” Feehan replied. “My mom was an empath. She died in a home for the mentally unstable at thirty.”

Ella swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been tough for you.”

“Tougher for her. She died when I was four.” He waited for the secure gate to rise at the SBLE underground parking lot. “It was just before the two governments instigated the new mating policies to keep empaths alive and functioning.” He parked and turned off the engine. “So you can see why I’m particularly keen for you to survive. Your work for the SBLE is exceptional, and as a department, we would hate to lose your gifts.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel special or something?” She took off her seatbelt and scrambled out of the car. “You can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to.” Gee, now she sounded like a petulant five-year-old. Maybe she should stamp her foot and pout.

Feehan followed suit and stood staring at her. “That’s true, but as your superior, I can only offer you the benefit of my advice.”

“Well, thanks, I sure appreciate your input.” She pushed open the door into the main building and enjoyed the rush of cold air. “Now, shall we focus on catching this killer?”

* * *

An hour later, fortified by three jelly donuts and two cans of lemonade, Ella sat in the largest of the three conference rooms awaiting her colleagues. She’d taken off her jacket and was busy trying to scrape jelly off her purple kitty T-shirt.

“Hey, Ella.” Liz Goddard took the seat next to her and wrinkled her nose. “What the hell is that on your shirt, blood?”

“Nope, just the internal gushings of a donut. I somehow missed my mouth.”

Liz shuddered and smoothed out the perfect pleats in her off-white pantsuit. She always looked immaculate. Ella had suffered severe clothes-envy until she’d realized that Liz was part Fae and able to create her own glamor.

“How’s Doug?” Ella asked.

“He’s good,” Liz said, her smile brightening. “He’s got a new contract with the government to work on the Fae/Human database, so he’s the happiest nerd on the planet.”

“Cool. So you’ll be able to stay in the city, then?”

“Yeah, which is awesome.” She nudged Ella in the ribs. “I need to return the favor and introduce you to some hot dude.”

“I don’t want a hot dude. I want a nerd like Doug.”

“No, you don’t. He’d drive you batshit.” Liz grinned. “He drives
me
batshit, but somehow that’s okay.”

“That’s because you are a better, kinder person than I will ever be.”

“No, it’s because when he gets really annoying, I can cast a spell and shut him up.”

“I wish I could do that.”

Liz gave her a skeptical look. “You can wipe their minds. That’s way cooler.”

Her smile died. “Not really. Who wants to be the girl no one ever remembers?”

“Ella, are you okay?” Liz reached out and touched her arm.

As Ella opened her mouth to inquire why everyone kept asking her that, Feehan came into the room with the two other guys who made up the SBLE special response team. Ella nodded at Rich and Andrew, and then turned her attention to her boss, who looked almost as tired as she did.

He walked over to the board and stuck up a picture of the apartment building, a shot of the couch with the victim on it, and an enlarged copy of the woman’s driving license.