Chapter One

Ryan drew his shield over himself, letting his psychic senses dampen down. All day, most days, he dropped his armor, walking around exposed, vulnerable on all sides to the flood of stimuli. Such was the life of a professional psychic. He was unable to cut himself off when he was on the job. His clients depended on his abilities. While he could cold read a person to give Houdini a run for his money, Ryan was the real deal when it came to being psychic. Houdini would have had a helluva time debunking his abilities.

Here at home, safe in his fortress of solitude, Ryan armored up, drawing upon his psychic shields. He could rest, letting his senses recharge. Elsie—one of the original inhabitants of the town in the 1890s—had been the only thing able to penetrate his shields. The books on his bookcase rattled alerting him that Elsie, his boisterous ghost, had noted his return.

Ryan double-checked the setting on the air conditioning in his tiny Harmony Hall apartment. He might have been born and raised in Cassadaga, but it didn’t mean he loved Florida summers. That said, the air conditioner sat at an acceptable temperature, but inside, the heat stifled him. He turned on the old fan from the 1930s, the kind with barely a whisper of a guard surrounding it, and aimed it at his computer. Only the force of the wind coming out of the fan kept Kuro from jamming his paws into it to catch the blades. His cat didn’t like his fur mussed.

Ryan drew the curtains where his apartment overlooked the Cassadaga Hotel before stripping off his shorts. There, he was as naked as he could get without removing skin, and he was still too hot. He crammed into the cramped shower and ducked his head under the faucet, wetting his hair. Afterward, he strolled into the kitchen, poured himself an iced tea, and rubbed the cool glass across his nipples a few times in a vain attempt to lower his body temperature.

Finally, giving up, Ryan returned to his computer and let the ancient fan and his wet hair act as a swamp cooler. Acclimatize my ass. In quiet moments like this, Ryan was sure he heard the mildew growing on his skin in the humidity. He streamed some indie music and opened up a story file. After a day of work, he enjoyed doing what he’d actually gone to school for: writing.

Unfortunately, his career as an urban fantasy writer hadn’t taken off yet, so he was still in the family business. Much to the endless and completely irrational irritation of his sister, Mary. Ryan didn’t quite get it. She’d been vicious in claiming their mother’s house as her own to do readings in, following their mother’s path. Their whole family possessed psychic abilities, as did many others in Cassadaga, a Spiritualist commune.

Ryan didn’t understand why he couldn’t share the house with Mary, but she was having none of it. She’d been pissed off he’d been accepted into Harmony Hall after proving his abilities worthy of the honor. One had to be psychic to rent there. It bemused him that his only living relative didn’t want much to do with him, and it wasn’t because he was gay. Mary didn’t give a crap about his sexuality. No, she didn’t like the fact that his psychic abilities equaled hers.

Shoving Mary from his mind, Ryan tried to get into his story, but the day’s worries bled into his consciousness. Tomorrow, a big open house would have trainees doing half-price readings at the Davis Center, and he’d have to oversee Lisa, his trainee. It was fun, in a way, interacting with the public, and many turned out for the half-price offering. But surely there was more he could be doing with his ability.

A vague disappointment dogged Ryan because he hadn’t thought to do the psychic TV thing. He assumed they started out legit, but ratings and pressure from the shows’ money men probably quickly led to faking results. Sure, some of them did fake stuff. He’d been on more ghost hunts than he could count. No one got so many results every time, and demons didn’t really lurk around every corner. Oh, he didn’t discount demons—but to have house after house filled with them? He had his doubts. He didn’t want to contribute to all the charlatan acts out there. He was the real deal.

Sighing, he gave up for a moment and tried to clear his head with a little internet therapy. Of course the internet was as big a bane to his writing as it was an asset to his research. He checked out a tarot card Kickstarter using some truly gorgeous art and sighed again. The goal hadn’t quite been reached yet, but hopefully soon. He planned to add them to his collection. His last acquisition had been a steampunk deck almost too pretty to use. Tarot cards were the one thing he collected outside of manga. Ryan had reluctantly put his books into storage because his apartment was too small, and he’d moved to e-books, which didn’t have the same appeal. Still, his hating on the e-book afforded him nothing. He planned to sell some one day.

Elsie fluttered in the corner of his eye like black butterflies dancing in and out of the ceiling fan blades. When he turned his attention to her, she smiled, waved, and faded away, content she’d gotten his attention. Rolling his eyes, Ryan turned to his computer. He goofed off on the internet for a little while longer before getting back to his fantasy world. He’d left his warrior witch in a rough spot. He probably ought to have her save herself.

*

“Where the hell is the garlic?”

“Knowing you, it’s everywhere.”

Santino glared over his shoulder at his partner, Cam, who sat at the kitchen table watching him cook. “You like garlic.”

He concentrated on the braid of bulbs on the counter. It wiggled, then flew over to his hand.

“I do. And not walking to get the garlic is lazy,” she singsonged.

He yanked two cloves out of the head and hit them with the flat of his knife. “You know what our mentor says—the best way to improve your skills is to use them.”

“You ran around your parents’ house saying ‘I can use the Force!’ when you were a kid, didn’t you?” Cam cocked her head to the side. “Probably still do.”

Santino held up two fingers and his thumb, making a pinching motion. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” he intoned.

Cam choked and slumped on the table, her long raven hair spilling about her.

“Smart ass.” Santino returned to cutting garlic.

“You know you wanted me to do it,” Cam said into the wooden table.

He snorted. Both of them knew he could use his psychokinesis to choke an enemy if need be, and to the enemy, he probably appeared like Darth Vader. Santino liked to think he was on the side of light, though he wasn’t much like Luke. He possessed Han’s swagger and proud of it. The Aspida Pneuma, the group he and Cam belonged to, encouraged use of their powers. After all, they were necessary to keep an eye out for any number of enemies, rogue vampires, and werewolves who weren’t content to hunt game, evil faeries, wicked spirits—and the list grew from there.

What Santino really wanted was to make a pizza, but he wasn’t going to turn the oven on in this heat. Making pasta wasn’t much better, adding to the humidity, but at least the water wouldn’t be on boil for long. “Why did we have to pull an assignment in Florida in August?”

“You know why.” Cam lifted her head, eyeing him. “Given your heritage, I can’t believe you don’t like the heat.”

“No stereotyping.” He wagged the knife at her. It was true though. His roots dove deep into Italy’s boot, and Cam’s parents had come from Viet Nam when she was a baby. The love of humidity and heat seemed woven into her DNA. A Viking must have gotten into his mix. Santino loved the cold.

“If nothing else, we have a killer safe house.” Cam gestured to the pretty leaded glass in the kitchen door.

Santino couldn’t argue. He’d like to know who originally owned the house. In comparison to the neighbors, it was pretty close to being a mansion with a nice sprawling yard. The rest of the town was older, smaller, with a few too many houses scraping the bottom rung of middle class and in dire need of repairs. It was probably why the Aspida had bought the house. It had been a white elephant, but the house made for a credible tourist rental, between the psychic Camp in town and it being roughly midway between Daytona and Orlando. “So, tomorrow we hit up the half-price readings—see if there are any psychics strong enough to recruit?”

Cam nodded. “You’ll be better at it than me.”

Her statement rang true. Santino had a small ability as a medium, but PK was where he shined. Santino used it to fetch a frying pan out of the cabinet to start the garlic cooking. “It’ll take longer to build trust with the nixie. I can see why we’re supposed to rescue her from Lake Colby.”

“It’s a pond,” Cam replied, going to get some dishes out of the cupboard for dinner.

“Agreed. And eutrophic. Have you ever mitigated a nixie before?”

Cam shook her head. “No. Don’t they return to the faerie realm if their local watering hole goes bad?”

“Most, yes. But sometimes, the door to the faerie realm gets stuck, so we help them to go to a better lake, one with an active door so they can make a choice to stay or go.” Santino frowned. “Given that Lake Apopka is turning boy turtles into girls, with all the pollution, we might have to leave the state of Florida for this.”

“Provided the nixie doesn’t try to drown us.” Cam held up her hand. “I know, I know. Most nixies are good, and this one did manage to get word to a wood elf that help was needed. She’s probably on our side. I think we can take her to Alexander or Silver Springs out near Ocala. Alexander has a nice underwater cave.”

“True. Silver Springs might be too touristy. It’s where they shot the old Tarzans and Creatures from the Black Lagoon.” Santino put a few shots of olive oil into the pan. “Granted, we’d be giving the springs its very own creature.”

Cam laughed and sailed out of the hot kitchen, no help when it came to the cooking. It was a pity. Santino loved learning about different cultures through their food. Cam knew how to make a couple Vietnamese dishes, and not much more. He did the bulk of the cooking in this partnership. He didn’t mind it. His Italian grannies had prepared him well for the job—both with cooking and handling his psychic abilities. Cleaning, he hated, and Cam was practically OCD about it, so it worked out. He cooked, and she cleaned.

As he sautéed the garlic, he mused about his looming thirtieth birthday. He hoped it was possible to wrap this case up quickly as he’d booked himself a trip to Wales, Scotland, and the Isles of Man and Skye. Santino expected the Aspida to figure a way to make it into a working vacation. All he did was work, but maybe it would distract him from the fact that he was nearly thirty and alone. At eighteen, Santino had decided if he was still alone at thirty, he’d hang it up and be an old man. What a brainless twit he’d been. Thirty wasn’t old, and Santino no longer cared all that much that he was alone. That being said, it would help if he was in the same place long enough to find a date. As it was, he’d almost given up on finding love which lasted more than an evening or two.

Santino forced his mind on topic. He hoped there’d be no psychics worth recruiting this time, which would speed things along. They could say they looked, rescue the nixie, then get the hell out of this mosquito-infested sandbar, and he’d stop sweating his balls off. After dinner, Santino slowly made his way down the narrow back road to Lake Colby, taking the long way through town. He hoped it would give him a better idea of what the town looked like. Most of the houses on this road were small and old, and a few of them butted up to Colby Park. He passed one house where four miniature Schnauzers stood at the fence barking their warnings to him, alerting the block to his presence. No one peeked out a window, making him suspect the dogs barked at most things. There really wasn’t much to Cassadaga, and Lake Colby was so small, he wasn’t sure how a nixie lived in it.

Santino paused at the mouth of the lake. No, he corrected himself, this is a pond. He could skip a rock across the thing. A sugar sand beach formed a narrow white rim outlining it. Unsure if there were alligators in it, Santino sat several feet away on the grass, looking into the trees. He spotted Cam’s owl form on a high branch. While Santino was psychic, Cam had actual magic. She hooted at him. Smiling up at her, Santino pulled a reed whistle out of his pocket. He blew across the slender instrument. It should call the nixie, provided she was still there. Nixies could leave their waterway, but they were magically prohibited from going tremendously far, at least not on their own. He waited, but nothing answered his call.

He listened to the night. Crickets sang. Somewhere dogs yapped, probably the Schnauzer quartet. Bats flapped overhead while night birds swooped and climbed over the lake picking off the mosquitoes buzzing everywhere. The birds and bats couldn’t eat enough of them as far as Santino was concerned. If he got West Nile or dengue fever from this little trip, there’d be hell to pay. Of course, Cam would laugh at him for thinking it, and probably tell him it was the ticks he had to worry about. She wouldn’t be wrong.

Santino swept the area with his flashlight. No eye flash from a gator or something equally unwanted greeted him. He blew the reed flute a few more times. Nothing. Cam dove and perched on the bench next to him. He shrugged and stood up. If the nixie was in residence, she wasn’t answering. He hoped it wasn’t too late. She had to have been pretty sick to ask for help, but there was no way he was going into the lake in the dark.

He took a different path home, strolling past the Cassadaga Hotel and Harmony Hall. Some of the apartments had Christmas lights ringing their small balconies though it wasn’t near Christmas. Santino looked up, sensing eyes on him. Someone was watching him, but he was unable to make out any details from the way the man—he was pretty sure it was a man—was backlit. Santino waved, and the figure nodded but didn’t call out to him.

Santino walked on across the street, figuring Cam was already at their safe house. To his right was the Purple Rose, one of the local shops he’d been instructed to check out. Exploring the Rose could wait until after he visited the half-price day with the psychics. It would be a busy couple of days. He looked forward to it, but not as much as he anticipated returning into the air conditioning. It was murder trying to sleep in this heat and humidity.

Cam hadn’t returned, which worried him for a second until wings flapping alerted him to her return. Santino opened the front door. Cam glided in and shifted form. It was a mystery what sort of magic she used to defy the physics of mass conservation or how her clothing became part of her feathers or disappeared into the ether only to reappear when she became human again.

“I heard something interesting,” she said, flopping on the couch. “As I flew close to one of the houses on the way home, someone was talking about a psychic—Edna May Olivier—being taken to the hospital. She collapsed during a reading in her house. She’s the second one in as many days.”

Santino blinked. “I’m surprised. Looks like we have a mystery on our hands.”

“Or it’s something for the CDC.” Cam shrugged. “Or it’s the heat you keep whining about.”

Either way, this mission had just gotten a little more interesting.