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.”
Oh, great. Now the psychic was talking to him, but Viktor wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to stick around for a conversation. He was feeling decidedly off-kilter. Seeing the object of his stalking under attack… He definitely needed some alone time.
But Ant obviously didn’t realize that. “I had to block you out while I was doing the reading. If I hadn’t done that, I’d have known the moment someone got close enough to hit me with a bullet. Or Able.”
“Why didn’t your dog see or hear them?” Viktor had seen the intruders the moment they’d gotten within fifty feet of the psychic. Admittedly, he’d dismissed them as a harmless couple looking for somewhere to get their rocks off at the time, but he knew they were in the area. “Doesn’t he have superpowers?”
“Like you, you mean?” Ant was focusing on him now and he was smiling. Viktor almost took a step backward. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen the psychic smile before, but this was the first time one had been directed at him. “Able’s job is to stand guard over me while I’m doing a reading. His only focus is meant to be me, and he doesn’t intervene unless someone comes at me directly, even at those times when a vampire saves me from a bullet. I want to thank you for that.”
He looked at his dog fondly, making Viktor wish he was the damn dog. What is wrong with me?
“Whether the bullet was meant for me or Able, it would’ve made a mess of either one of us. I truly appreciate your intervention. Are you all right?”
“All right?” Viktor repeated, surprised the psychic even asked. “Er… yes. I’m fine. I heal quickly.” He looked down at his hand. He was still holding the bullet. “This is a large caliber. You, or Able, weren’t meant to survive.”
Ant got to his feet. “It happens in my line of work,” he said simply. “Some people are ruled by fear, and one of the biggest fears they have are about the things they don’t understand – like my abilities for example. Before you go, would you mind telling me what people call you?”
“Nothing complimentary as a rule,” Viktor huffed. “I’m known as Viktor.”
“It’ll be nice to call you something other than stalker.” Ant smiled, but then he moved closer and patted Viktor’s chest. He wasn’t looking at Viktor directly, but Viktor felt a weird vibe in the air. “Someone close to you is not happy with you.” It was almost as if Ant was talking to himself.
“They want something you’re not prepared to give them, and if it doesn’t come soon, they may…they may...” He tilted his head to one side. “I’m sorry. You need to take care. The events haven’t happened yet, so what I can see is limited, but please. Be careful of those who live in the shadows.”
“I’ve lived in the shadows a long time,” Viktor said gruffly, more affected than he wanted to let on from that simple touch.
“It might be time to step out from them then.” Ant glanced over to the police car. Mike was probably on his phone again. “I have to give a report of the things I saw here before you became the only thing I could see. There’s something else… You know what, I’ll make it simple for you. I want you to take this.” He clicked his fingers, and a small vial appeared in his hand. He tucked it into Viktor’s jacket pocket.
“What is it?” Viktor frowned down at his jacket.
“A sample of my blood. When you’re ready, sniff it. It’ll give you the answers you need, or at least let you know why you’ve suddenly become a stalker when I’m sure that’s not a regular occupation for you. I’m coming, Mike,” he called out as Viktor heard a car door opening. “I have to get back to work. Remember what I said about the shadows and be careful.”
“I’m not the one who was shot at.” But the psychic was already walking away, and suddenly Viktor had the urge to get somewhere private as well. Sniffing a person’s blood – perhaps tasting it? Viktor’s mouth watered just thinking about it...
It wasn’t until he got back to his car that he pondered Ant’s words – well, the ones that didn’t make sense like “when you’re ready.”
Ready for what, exactly? What did the psychic know that Viktor didn’t?
And why did he think a vial of blood would give me an answer to a question I’m sure I haven’t even asked?
Viktor pondered the mystery of the enigmatic psychic as he slowly drove back to town. Watching the man, as he had been, he had gained a few clues about how Ant operated. Viktor wasn’t going to apologize for the stalking. He had just saved the man’s life - or his dog’s life, which was apparently equally important – which he’d only been able to do because he had been stalking the man, so he had to get kudos for that.
But what do I actually know?
The psychic was a man of complex layers. That was a gut instinct Viktor had, rather than an observation. Ant had friends who he socialized with, but Viktor noticed it wasn’t in large groups, and Ant didn’t seem overly comfortable doing it. But he did have people he would share a meal with.
Then there was his work at the university, or Mage’s Academy, or whatever it was called. Viktor didn’t have a lot of time for magic users as a rule, so it wasn’t like he was going to learn the correct terminology for their stuffy establishments. But Ant had lectured there twice, and in the course of his stalking, Viktor hadn’t missed the psychic’s sister’s comment about the students watching his ass as he left the room. So it was reasonable to conclude that people considered Ant nice to look at.
Viktor pondered that for a moment. As a rule, physical characteristics didn’t impact him one way or the other. Viktor had evolved past the idea that people were food – his fledging years were so far back in history they were barely worth thinking about. Viktor had found that if he kept his eyes closed, one person’s blood tasted much like another’s. He was more concerned with a person’s hygiene than their looks. He rarely fed from the source anymore, and it had been a long time since someone’s looks had stirred him physically in any way.
Ant did have a certain physical appeal. Viktor had definitely noticed him, and during the time he’d been stalking the psychic, he’d noticed the interest the man got from others just by walking into a room. But wasn’t that a power aspect rather than physical looks?
Who are you trying to kid? The man is gorgeous. Admit it and move on. Which was a fair enough comment from his other side, but Viktor wasn’t going to rush into…
The ringing of his phone broke into Viktor’s musings, and he frowned. He felt like he was being intruded on and that annoyed him. Answering the call with a gruff, “What?” Viktor wasn’t surprised to hear it was Tony.
“Is that any way to talk to your boss?”
Damn it. Tony was in a bad mood. That didn’t bode well for the rest of Viktor’s evening. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“Well drop it, whatever it is. I need you to go after that psychic you were telling me about – the one who testified and got Duncan off. He has to be silenced.”
Viktor swerved to the side of the road and slammed on his brakes. Thank goodness there wasn’t any other traffic. “What are you talking about? You wanted me to pay him off a few days ago.”
“That was before I found out the psychic described me perfectly in fucking court.”
That explains the bad mood, but Tony hadn’t finished ranting. “Banks told me – told me the damn man described me down to my freaking eye color. How the hell was that possible?”
“I don’t know how magic users work.” Viktor rubbed in between his eyes, thinking fast. “The description he gave could fit a hundred people. I was there, remember. I did hear what the psychic said. The man also said specifically he had no idea who you are because your half-assed lawyer asked him.”
“I don’t care. It’s too much of a risk. As it is, I’m going to have to dye my damn hair…”
You do that already.
“…and find some fucking contact lenses. I’m not having some no-account magic user put my life and operations at risk, you hear me? I want him taken out. Silenced completely. Now. Tonight.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Think! “Tony, if you do that then the police are going to come looking for you, for sure. I don’t care what Banks said – that ass couldn’t argue his way out of a paper bag and anything he’s telling you is to save his own skin.
“Unlike Banks, I paid attention when I was in the courtroom. The judge called that psychic by name and treated him with respect. The man works with the police on all kinds of cases – finding missing kids and reading murder scenes. If he goes missing then every officer within a hundred miles is going to be chasing his killer and they’re not going to give up until they find that person. That’s without the magical community getting up in arms about one of their own disappearing and using their own skills to find out the person responsible. Do you want or need that kind of heat, Tony? Be sensible about this shit.”
Is that why Ant was shot at tonight? Has Tony already sent his men out?
“He knows what I look like,” Tony insisted. “He can finger me for the Fallows murder.”
“If you’re arrested for it, then yes, potentially he could verify it was you who did it. But think about it, Tony. How likely is it that’s going to happen? You didn’t know Fallows, did you?”
“I told you. He was just a random stranger walking down the road.”
Viktor rolled his eyes – Tony should’ve left the poor man alone. “There you go. Why would the police come knocking on your door when there are a hundred other people in town who have the same basic physical description as you? And what if the police did end up at your door? They still couldn’t arrest you. You would have a dozen people in your house at any one time who would swear that you were home having a party the night of the murder. You know this, Tony. You’re letting Banks’s poor performance in court get to you. You’re better than that.”
There was a long silence, and Viktor was thinking about pulling his car back out onto the road again, when Tony laughed. “That’s why I keep you around, Vik. You’re my voice of reason. It must be because you’re so damn old. How long are you going to be? I was thinking we could hit a couple of the clubs tonight.”
Viktor checked the time on his car dashboard, and then glanced down the road. “I’m about twenty minutes out of town. Text me what club you’re going to, and I’ll meet you there.”
“You’d better.” Tony disconnected the call before Viktor could.
That’s all I fucking need, spending the night watching Tony throwing his weight around and making a fool of himself, Viktor thought grimly as he started driving again. But as he got closer to town, he thought about the other things that Ant had said, about those in the shadows and their danger to him personally. It would’ve helped if you’d been blessed with a spot of foresight, instead of hindsight.
Ant had to be referring to Tony. He read things that had already happened, and Tony had brought up the idea of being turned at least a dozen times in the past year alone.
There was also Tony’s business dealings and the people he kept around him as “family.” Viktor could think of at least ten people in that group who’d happily knife him in the back in the hopes of stepping into his job.
And that was without the danger his association with Tony and his family was to Viktor personally. He was damned by his association with the crime family and had been for years. Frankly, when he got his first taste of that a few years before, Viktor hadn’t cared. There had never been anyone who’d given a damn about him for decades and being empathetic wasn’t in his skill set.
Somehow, Viktor didn’t think when Ant said about how it might’ve been time for him to step out of the shadows, he was talking about going to a brightly lit nightclub.
And yet, that’s where I’m going. He patted his pocket, feeling the small vial along with the bullet he’d grabbed, saving the man… or his dog, he thought with a shake of his head.
Maybe I need to grab some dog treats and start carrying them around, and no, Viktor had no idea why that sounded like the best idea he’d had all night.