Alright, I’m getting this book edited and should have it to betas this week so I can have it ready to go by the deadline in January. My plan for this series is to release the first three quickly. Psychic Undercover (with the Undead!) in January, Psycho (and Psychic) Games in February, and Psychic for Sale (Rent to Own) in March. And the fourth, Psychic Wanted (Un)Dead or Alive in October.
Starting to work on the blurb, but for now, here’s an excerpt.
(Also, The Gods Defense, the first in the Laws of Magic series, is on sale for the next 24 hours for $0.99!)
Excerpt:
I put the blanket I always carry in my pack on the ground so Kat could kneel by the body without getting today’s ensemble, a bright blue dress under her yellow slicker, dirty. Her necklaces clattered together and one of the Metro detectives snorted, sneering.
I shot him a look. Nobody asked him his opinion on her clothes.
“Problem, Detec-tiv?” Grant asked, starin’ the man down.
He shook his head and went back to takin’ the photos for Metro.
Ohhhh, what had gone down before I got here?
“Rigor hasn’t fully set in yet. Based on that and the temp…” Kat’s eyes went up as she muttered calculations. “She’s been dead about five to seven hours.”
She pulled her liver probe out of the poor girl and I looked away.
I hate watchin’ that. When you can stick a probe in and they don’t twitch is when someone’s really dead to me.
Jet helped me bag while I waited for Kat to finish her initial exam and he waited on hold.
He was getting’ the runaround from some business types. If they thought they could ignore him til he went away, they didn’t know Jet Kowalski.
He’s the best leg man in Nashville; relentless as a coon dog.
“She was drained,” Kat said. “She had sex before she died, possibly rape, but I can’t tell more until I get her on the table.”
She stood, face as impassive as Grant’s.
“Kat?” I asked.
She shook her head. “She’s dolled up, but my rough calculations say she’s barely legal.”
“Calculations?” I asked. “Like the length of leg bones, size of ears and stuff to estimate age? You can do those in your head?”
“I can’t measure exactly by sight, but close enough to estimate.”
And mama thinks I’m gifted?
Speaking of…
Grant motioned and Jet and Dan jumped to without more explanation needed, herding the Metro detectives out of the alley and behind the tape, far enough away that I could only hear the pissed off voices, not the actual words.
“Take it up with our boss,” Jet said as he walked back.
I knelt on my blanket and pulled my incense out of my kit.
I always keep the kit in my car. It has the basics: fingerprint powder and the tape to lift it, bags, tags, collection tubes, and non-latex gloves, cuz I’m allergic, and I added the blanket, a wood bowl, and sandalwood incense.
Sandalwood seems to be the best to boost the psychic juices.
I don’t know why. I don’t know anything about my gift even though I’ve had it almost two years.
I wish I knew why I’m psychic, like if a grandma or something was then at least I could say it’s genetic, but no one in my family (and it’s not small) has any kind of powers. I was never bitten by a radioactive spider or had any strange medical procedures done. I didn’t get hit by lightning, or die and come back.
I just woke up on a random day fall of my senior year, and had a perfectly normal day going to school and meetin’ a guy for dinner.
He took me to a nice restaurant in Printer’s Alley. He wanted it to be a surprise.
It wasn’t.
We were driving and I asked where we were going. A bright light flashed, and I saw the giant glowing Printer’s Alley arch right over the parking sign.
I thought I was going insane until we pulled right into the alley. Then I didn’t know what was going on. The next time it happened, I was less shocked, but it took a few times for me to realize the visions were here to stay.
I lit the stick, put it in the wood bowl, and took a deep breath.
It’s always scary to touch someone the first time. It’s worse when I know I’ll probably see the person being murdered.
It’d already been hours and had rained. My visions are like forensic evidence in that if I get on the scene right away there’s a ton of psychic energy cuz something traumatic just happened. So I can get a ton of stuff.
But I only get flashes off the dead of recent events, like within half a day or so. The more time passes, the more the energy dissipates, and I can’t get much. And if a body’s cold, psychically speaking, I can’t even get the First Impression off it.
I let myself shake for a minute and grinned like an idiot before palmin’ her cheek.
Flash.
The girl was walking, six inch screw-me shoes clicking out a tune on the gravel.
“Why are we going into the park?”
The vision expanded. She was walking across the lane towards the trees in the park.
“I like making love under the stars,” a male voice answered.
I couldn’t see whose arm she hung on, but he was about six feet tall.
“We’ll get caught!”
“I like the risk of getting caught.”
“Since when? You neverel,” she slurred, fear leaking through her. “Neverrrral… Whatttt… diddd youugl…?”
She dropped and he caught her, swooping her up.
My vision went black. Was that it? Maybe she passed out and didn’t see what happened next. For her sake, I hoped so, even if I’d get more if she didn’t.
Flash.
She was under a tree, lying on the ground. She couldn’t move anything but her eyes.
The shadow above tore off her black panties, slipped on a condom, and ripped into her body.
She couldn’t feel it. It was like it was happening on a TV show.
It took him only a minute to come and he moaned like an animal. He tucked the used condom in his pocket along with her torn panties.
He picked her up and walked across the street to the alley. No worries about witnesses or security cameras?
He lay her on the ground in the alley, arranging her legs out and pushing up her skirt. He took off her shoes and pulled gravel out of his other pocket. He rubbed that into her bare feet and leaned over her.
What was he doing?
When he pulled back, her neck was bleeding freely. He pulled something else out of his pocket, those things sure could hold a lot, and leaned over her again.
The rain picked up as darkness took her. She loved the rain.
I jerked and crumpled in on myself like a kicked bag. My brain boiled and I half expected steam to pour out of my ears.
Tears spilled down my cheeks and my nose started to run.
She’d been awake. Oh God, she’d lasted long enough to see him violating her and had been there just enough to know she was gonna die.
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