Killer Moon (Psychic For Hire 2)

ALYS

I’m driving, you’re riding.

I insisted it many times, but Diana didn’t trust me. Can’t blame her. I wouldn’t trust me either. Finally I had to remind Diana of Storm’s mortality before she agreed. Only after insisting that I couldn’t block her out of my mind did she grudgingly let me take control over our body. I can feel her in there jittering with anxiety and discontent. It’s the last thing I need tearing away at my focus.

I had to agree to her terms. Despite my best efforts, I still can’t control her body at will in the daytime when she is strong and full of energy and aware of her own consciousness. And certainly not now that she knows about me and will be vigilant. I have only done it when she is sleeping or tired or scared or sick. Only in moments when she hadn’t even been aware that her control over herself had slipped just enough for me to take over while she was unaware.

So I’ll let her have it her way for now. But only until I grow stronger than her, though I won’t be telling her that any time soon.

No killing anyone, she tells me now. Remember you promised no killing anyone this time.

“Yeah, whatever,” I say, making the cab driver glance at me in the rear-view mirror. I glare until he looks away.

I much prefer it when she isn’t riding. When I can’t hear her at all. When she is blissfully asleep and unaware of what I had been doing.

She is fidgeting inside my head. Are you sure this is going to work? I’ve never shot a gun before.

“I have.”

As the cab approaches the right road in Shoreditch I tell the driver to park up around the corner from the shop. I don’t need him being a witness to anything he isn’t supposed to see. And I don’t need him to recall my face later and tell anyone about me going there. I pay him in cash and get out, waiting for him to drive off before I jog up the road in the direction of the shop.

Are we here? she asks. Is this the place? Where’s the shop?

“Chill out.”

Hurry, she urges.

“If you’d had a car we would be there by now,” I tell her.

Getting to the corner of the road I loiter there, and take a casual glance towards the shop. A cop car is outside it. I see Storm’s SUV parked up the road.

He’s already here, she says. You can run in and warn him.

“And have him ask us how we know about this place? I don’t think so.”

Both cars are empty. Storm must already be inside. I stroll casually up the road towards the shop. I pass a fire escape on an adjacent building that leads to the roof. She sees it.

You can get up to the roof, she says. She is right. It has a vantage point overlooking the road. We would see anyone arrive.

Do you think the pack is here already? she says.

“I doubt it. They didn't seem the sort to arrive quietly.”

Are you a good enough shot to—

“Will you shut up?” I snarl.

There is a squeal of tires somewhere behind me. A swift glance over my shoulder shows me four muscle cars roaring around the corner.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

Is that them? she asks, the feeling of her seeming to tense in my mind. Is that his pack?

“Looks like it.”

You have to do something!

“Doing it,” I mutter.