HOLLIS TEMPLETON—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
A slight woman of medium height, she has regular features that become memorable when animated, and extremely unusual and striking blue eyes that make her face unforgettable. Brown hair worn in a short, no-fuss style.
Job: Special Agent, profiler.
Adept: Her primary ability is as a medium, and she’s the most powerful medium in the unit, but Hollis is unique in several ways, not the least because she has, from case to case, awakened or even created numerous other psychic abilities, more than any psychic in the SCU or Haven, more than any psychic Bishop has ever known. And those abilities tend to be full-blown almost immediately, though never perfectly under her control.
One theory that could explain Hollis’s numerous abilities could be the extreme trauma of her psychic awakening (see Touching Evil), which was the most horrific and brutal on record. But other agents in the SCU and operatives in Haven have suffered extremely traumatic psychic awakenings without continually gaining new abilities as Hollis has.
She is unique within an extraordinary group of unique people.
In addition to being a medium, she is able to see auras, heal herself and others, and recognize true evil no matter how it attempts to hide itself; she possesses the ability to sense, define, channel, and use sheer energy, even dark energy, without being harmed by it; and most recently she has awakened or created an extraordinarily strong ability as an empath. She may also be clairvoyant, though she and Bishop disagree about it. And she consistently tests at the higher, more powerful end of the scale the SCU has developed to measure psychic abilities—with every new ability gained.
Hollis, more than any other member of the unit, is proving there may well be no limits to what the human mind can achieve.
Appearances: Touching Evil, Sense of Evil, Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties, Haven, Hostage, Haunted, Wait for Dark, Hold Back the Dark, Curse of Salem
DIANA HAYES—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Medium height and slender but athletic, she has the coppery hair and fair skin of a true redhead. Not beautiful, her vivid green eyes and slow smile make her more than attractive.
Job: Special Agent, profiler.
Adept: Medium, the only one in the unit able to open a door to something she calls “the gray time,” which she believes is a sort of corridor between the living world and the spirit realm. It’s a cold, gray, desolate place or time without either light or shadow, a place where Diana usually meets “spirit guides” who often appear as children even though they aren’t, and who are somewhat cryptic in explaining what Diana is called there to learn or do. Diana is also able to see and communicate with spirits in the living world, though she seldom sees the recently dead.
Appearances: Chill of Fear, Blood Ties, Curse of Salem
DANIEL—APPEARING AS A CHILD, DIANA’S SPIRIT GUIDE. BUT WHAT IS HE REALLY?
REESE DEMARCO—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Tall, powerful, blond hair, and light blue eyes. Originally one of the former military “civilian” operatives for Bishop, Reese has specialized in the past in deep-cover assignments, some long-term, until he came formally into the SCU as an agent and was partnered with Hollis.
Job: Special Agent, profiler. Also a pilot and a military-trained sniper.
Adept: An “open” born telepath, he is able to read a wide range of people. He possesses a unique double shield, which sometimes contains the unusually high amount of sheer energy he naturally produces, a shield he can enclose Hollis within when necessary for her safety. He also possesses something Bishop has dubbed a “primal ability”: He always knows when a gun is pointed at or near him, or if other imminent danger threatens. At least twice, that primal ability has saved the life of his partner.
Appearances: Blood Sins, Blood Ties, Haven, Hostage, Haunted, Wait for Dark, Hold Back the Dark, Curse of Salem
QUENTIN HAYES—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Tall, shaggy blond hair, and blue eyes. One of the earliest psychics recruited by Bishop, and already an FBI agent at the time, Quentin had a well-deserved reputation as something of a loner with a reckless, impatient nature, traits that have changed at least somewhat during his years with the SCU. Still tends toward humor, often of the flippant or gallows variety.
Job: Special Agent, profiler.
Adept: Quentin is a seer, precognitive, although for most of his life he never “saw” the future, just sometimes knew something would happen before it did. Meeting Diana Brisco and struggling to help the then-fragile psychic as well as solve a decades-old mystery in his own life, he begins to have actual visions, though they are still rare and extremely unsettling. He’s one of the best at using the “spider senses” developed by first Bishop and then many in the SCU, able to enhance the usual five senses to an extraordinary degree.
Appearances: Touching Evil, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Blood Sins, Blood Ties, Curse of Salem
NOAH BISHOP—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT CHIEF
Tall, wide-shouldered, athletic; night-black hair with a striking widow’s peak as well as a streak of pure white at his left temple; pale gray eyes like tarnished silver. A twisted scar down his left cheek is barely noticeable unless he’s tense or otherwise disturbed.
Job: Special Agent, Unit Chief, profiler, pilot, sharpshooter, and highly trained and skilled in several martial arts. Plus has mastered a number of esoteric skills often useful in his work such as lockpicking and a facility with computers close to that of professional hackers.
Adept: An exceptionally powerful telepath, an ability that has evolved, he also shares with his wife, Miranda, a strong precognitive ability, the deep emotional link between them making them, together, far exceed the limits of the scale developed by the FBI to measure psychic abilities. Also possesses an “ancillary” ability of enhanced senses (hearing, sight, scent), which he has trained other agents to use as well, something they informally refer to as “spider senses.” Whether present in the flesh or not, Bishop virtually always knows what’s going on with his agents in the field, somehow maintaining what seem to be psychic links with almost all of his agents, connected without in any way being intrusive, something that has also evolved over time. With some of them in certain situations he can actually communicate telepathically, something that has proven highly useful more than once.
Appearances: Stealing Shadows, Hiding in the Shadows, Out of the Shadows, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Sleeping with Fear, Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties, Haven, Hostage, Haunted, Fear the Dark, Wait for Dark, Hold Back the Dark, Hidden Salem, Curse of Salem
MIRANDA BISHOP—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Tall, athletic, yet with centerfold curves; black hair and electric blue eyes. Possesses the sort of rare beauty that turns heads wherever she goes despite the fact that she does nothing to play up her looks.
Job: Special Agent, profiler, black belt in karate, sharpshooter.
Adept: Miranda is a telepath and a seer, remarkably powerful, and possesses unusual control, particularly with a highly developed shield capable of protecting herself psychically, a shield she’s able to extend beyond herself to protect others. Shares abilities with her husband, due to their intense emotional connection, and together they far exceed the scale developed by the SCU to measure psychic abilities.
Appearances: Out of the Shadows, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties, Hostage, Haunted, Fear the Dark, Wait for Dark, Hold Back the Dark, Hidden Salem, Curse of Salem
FINN DEVERELL—CHIEF DEPUTY, SALEM SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
Age thirty-two, six feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes. The Deverells are one of the original five families that founded Salem, town leaders, and each owns and operates one of the major businesses that keep Salem not only viable but flourishing. In the case of the Deverells, the family business is twofold, with Finn running Salem’s one newspaper and a Deverell aunt in charge of the huge paper mill that produces not only the sort of paper people use every day, but also beautiful, specialized paper that is still made by hand using tools older than the town. Employing workers skilled in operating the machinery to produce ordinary paper as well as dozens highly skilled in producing the specialized paper, the Deverells pay very well, offer generous benefits and bonuses, and are considered one of the best families to work for. Like each of the other families, the Deverells tend to have, in every generation, at least one family member with a psychic ability, usually empathic. Finn is an empath.
Appearances: Hidden Salem, Curse of Salem
NELLIE CAVENDISH
Age thirty, petite, slender, brown eyes, and brown hair. Her father, Thomas Ryan Cavendish, left a mysterious message for her that brought her to Salem just before her thirtieth birthday (see Hidden Salem). She had no intention of remaining, but a deadly battle against an evil adversary leaves her at least temporarily in charge, the head of her family—one of the Five. Nellie is a rather extraordinary psychic, something she has hidden her entire life. Until Salem, where both her abilities and her understanding of them grow, and where she may or may not find the beginning of a new life.
Appearances: Hidden Salem, Curse of Salem
LEO
Nellie’s black Pit bull. Not exactly an ordinary dog.