Psychic Appeal- Urban Fantasy

Psychic Appeal Part 15

The next morning, Athena came into the kitchen as I was buttering my toast. Once again, she wore impossibly high stiletto heels. Today's shoes were navy and matched her pinstriped pantsuit. A string of pearls hung around her neck, dangling between her breasts, which were barely covered by a half-unbuttoned white shirt that did little to hide the lace bra she wore underneath. Her short hair had been slicked back with gel, giving it a wet just-out-of-the-shower look. She looked like a model from Vogue. She even smelled good, I caught a whiff of her musk perfume as she passed me. I felt frumpy and pudgy next to her. Why did the bad guys always get the good clothes?

"Good morning, Sofia." She took a mug out of a cupboard, and poured herself a cup of coffee. "Sleep well?"

I nodded.

She paused in the middle of adding sugar to her mug. "I like verbal responses to my questions. You're too shy with words."

"Yes, thank you," I said, bristling, and scraping butter across the bread with more force than was necessary.

"That's better. Kristoff likes his people quiet, so that will serve you well, but I expect people to speak when spoken to."

At the meaningful look she gave me, I managed a soft, "Okay."

She took a sip of her coffee and watched me put strawberry jam on my toast. "Renegades are...." she trailed off, waiting expectantly.

"The future of the human race." The words came to me without thought and they were out before I could stop them. Eyes wide with shock, I put a hand to my mouth as if I could stuff them back in.

"Excellent. You did sleep well, then." She drank the last of her coffee and put her cup in the sink before strutting past me, heading back to the office where we had met the day before.

I took my toast and went back to sit on the sofa closest to the big screen T.V., my thoughts heavy. The voices last night hadn't been my imagination or an acoustic mistake, it had been an attempt to brainwash me. Based on what happened in the kitchen, it appeared to have had some success. I was well on my way to becoming a renegade puppet.

I ate my breakfast, the toast tasting like ash, and took my dishes back to the kitchen, deciding to wash them simply because I had nothing better to do. Misery mixed with toast in my stomach resulting in a heavy ball of hopeless nausea. The collar made escape impossible and the brainwashing made me question how long it would be before my personality dissolved and slipped down the drain like the soap suds in the sink, never to be seen again. How long before I sniveled like Fred the mage? Not a happy thought. Add the fact Vera was probably dead by now, and Jacob was nothing more than a hint of bone sticking out of the ground in the Wastelands, and I found myself sniffing back tears.

All I had wanted was to be an antique dealer, find a guy to fall in love with, and maybe get married someday. I never wanted to be a private eye or work for dragon-Sidhe peace or be psychic for that matter. But because I was psychic, I did all the things I never wanted to, at the behest of people I cared about only to have them die or be kidnapped while finding myself about to become a saleable commodity for the renegades.

If the renegades had done any research, they would've known I'd never solved a case or successfully used my psychic abilities beyond selling antiques. Perhaps if they had known that, I would've lost some of my appeal. As psychics went, all I was good for was getting people killed.

I finished washing the dishes and put them in the rack to dry. Bored and depressed, I drifted aimlessly through the house, a numb feeling in my chest. The house was empty as usual, the rooms filled with quiet dread. Unable to find a distraction in the house, and not wanting to go outside, I returned to my room with the idea of taking a nap. What I really needed was a drink, but, if there was any alcohol in the house, I had yet to find it. I pulled the blankets over my head and huddled underneath them, taking comfort in the warmth as I slipped into a light sleep.