Hidden Salem Read online

  It had taken hours, but still less time than it might have, to offer their reports, to confirm photographs. The other agents would be questioning Duncan’s loyalist followers and his men in the militia, and when the weather broke there would be formal searches of homes and offices as well as the mountainside, but the agents were confident that more than one of Duncan’s former followers would give them the information they needed to locate whatever might remain of Duncan’s four victims.

  Since they had at last been left in relative peace and it was snowing heavily now, they all welcomed the warmth of inside, the gas fire burning in the hearth—and the hot toddies that Ms. Payton had unexpectedly produced.

  Geneva’s opinion of Ms. Payton had improved greatly when she had tasted the clean bite of a very good brandy.

  “When am I going to hear from you guys what happened up there?” Robert complained, but not as bitterly as he might have since he was working on his second toddy.

  “It shouldn’t be much longer,” Grayson assured him. “Bishop and whoever he’s bringing along to be absolutely certain we preserve the legalities of all this should be here soon, snow or no snow. Then most of us can make our brief preliminary reports to him and probably go to bed.” He looked at Finn. “But I’m thinking you’re up for the night.”

  “Probably,” Finn agreed, but not as if the prospect disturbed him very much.

  “What about Bethany?” Geneva asked, keeping her voice low even though the blanket-wrapped child sleeping on one of the couches in their group, her head pillowed on Nellie’s lap, was clearly very deeply asleep indeed, with hot soup and cocoa inside her.

  “My mother’s on her way here,” Finn told the others. He smiled as Nellie looked at him. “She’ll take care of Bethany until her parents come back. I have a hunch whatever was keeping them away and unaware will vanish now that Duncan’s gone.”

  Nellie was gently stroking the child’s hair. To the three in law enforcement, she said, “I hope you won’t need her to testify to anything but having been grabbed in the woods. That’s all she’ll remember.”

  “Now?” Geneva questioned softly.

  Nellie looked at her a moment, then smiled. “Now. She doesn’t need to remember anything else. Does she?”

  The big black dog lying at the other end of the couch laid his chin gently on the child’s hip and made a little sound deep in his throat.

  Robert said, “I think Leo has spoken. We should listen to him. Nellie, did you know your dog had a Talent?”

  Finn said to him, not unkindly, “I think you’d better stop with that toddy.”

  “No, I’m serious,” Robert said with utter clarity. “Pretty sure he’s connected to Nellie. I bet I could describe to you what happened up there, because Leo knew. I’m just waiting for the official report to confirm it.”

  Leo made another sound.

  Robert nodded seriously. “I know you told me stuff that won’t be in their reports. Don’t worry, it’s safe with me.”

  “You’re talking to a dog,” Finn said to him.

  “That’s no dog; that’s Leo. I think he’s an angel or something. Definitely more than a dog.”

  Geneva and Grayson exchanged looks, and the latter said, “I think Bishop is going to want to talk to you about Leo—and about you—Nellie. At least one more time.”

  “I’m not joining the team,” Nellie said calmly. “And neither is Leo.”

  “She has a bank to run here,” Finn told them, equally calm. “And other things. Cavendish holdings.”

  Nellie eyed him. “What makes you think I want to stay in this weird little town of yours?”

  “A little crow told me.” He finally relented under her stare. “You’re the head of the Cavendish family here now,” he reminded her. “This is your birthright. The material part of it, to add to everything you found out in the woods tonight. You have to stay at least long enough to make sure everything is in order, right? Duncan had no children, which means the direct family line now passes through Thomas to you.”

  “I thought only a male could inherit.”

  “I never said that. I just said there was a direct male line going all the way back to the five families who settled Salem. Believe me, the women of the Five have every right the men do, and then some. You’re officially head of the Cavendish family in Salem.”

  Nellie, her hand still gently stroking Bethany’s hair, began to look mutinous. “I don’t want to be.”

  Geneva spoke up to say, “Ask me, I think you should stick around long enough to see what there is to see. Now that the weird static is gone, as is Duncan, and his men are all wounded or locked up, this town may look and feel really different to you.”

  Leo lifted his head and made a rather odd series of sounds.

  “Leo has—has spoken,” Robert declared with less clarity, finally beginning to feel that second toddy.

  Nellie sighed, avoiding Finn’s amused gaze and refusing to allow his thoughts and emotions to touch her. For now, at least. “I’ll think about it later. So much has happened in the last couple of days, I think I need time to let it all sink in.”

  To Grayson, Geneva said seriously, “It’s not every day you see somebody summon a thunderbolt. Lightning bolt. Unless it’s Zeus. Of course, I sort of had my hands full just then, so I’m not exactly sure that’s what I saw.”

  “Me either,” Grayson said, peering regretfully into the dregs of his toddy. “There was an awful lot of noise. And confusion. And the light was weird anyway. I mean, I’ve never seen lightning in all the colors of the rainbow before.”

  Geneva waved a hand. “Oh, you didn’t see that. Your hands were full too. That acolyte of Duncan’s took a swing at you and connected. You’re going to have a lovely shiner tomorrow.”

  He eyed her. “What are you going to tell Bishop, you evil woman?”

  Her unusual gray eyes widened. “Now, since when has one of us ever been able to tell Bishop anything but the truth? Eventually.”

  Placated, he nodded. “True. I wonder how much of it will find its way into his official report.”

  “The good guys caught the bad guys before they could commit another murder,” Geneva said succinctly. “That’s all that matters in the end, right?”

  Silently, empty cups were raised in agreement.

  Leo woofed softly and lay his chin gently back on the sleeping little girl’s hip.

  Strange creatures, humans.

  But curiously endearing.

  CHARACTER BIOS

  NELLIE CAVENDISH

  Twenty-nine, petite, slender, brown eyes and brown hair. Very much tougher than she looks. Her father, Thomas Ryan Cavendish, leaves a message for her after his death saying she has to go to a town named Salem where his roots are, and trust only a man named Finn to help her do . . . whatever it is she’s supposed to do. She has no idea who Finn is, why she has to go to Salem—or why it has to be before her thirtieth birthday, less than two weeks away, when she finally makes up her mind to go on that mysterious and quite possibly dangerous journey. Nellie is a rather extraordinary psychic, something she has hidden her entire life. She does not know what sort of situation she’s walking into but feels driven to find out whatever it is her father wanted her to discover. To complete whatever it was he was unable to do. She is, among other things, clairvoyant.

  Appearances: Hidden Salem

  LEO

  Nellie’s black Pit bull.

  Appearances: Hidden Salem

  GRAYSON SHERIDAN

  FBI Special Crimes Unit—thirty-four, six feet tall, black hair and blue eyes. Very athletic.

  Job: Special Agent, profiler, sharpshooter, trained in mixed martial arts as well as other self-defense tactics and has a great deal of survival training and experience.

  Adept: Empath, with a strong shield that helps protect him from the barr
age of emotions from roughly sixty-five to seventy percent of all the people he encounters. Has to drop his shield to feel emotions. Except around one person.

  Appearances: Hidden Salem

  NOAH BISHOP

  FBI Special Crimes Unit—thirties, six-three, black hair made more striking by a widow’s peak and a shot of pure white at his left temple. Silver-gray eyes. Very athletic and physically powerful.

  Job: Unit Chief, profiler, pilot, sharpshooter, and highly trained and skilled in several martial arts.

  Adept: An exceptionally powerful touch-telepath, 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 Special Crimes Unit to measure psychic talents. 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 without in any way being intrusive.

  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

  GENEVA RAYNOR

  FBI Special Crimes Unit—thirty-two, tall, very red hair, gray eyes. Determined, stubborn, independent.

  Job: Special Agent, profiler. Highly intelligent, stubborn to a fault, and perfectly capable of working alone, Geneva is one of the few agents Bishop is willing to send into an investigation without a partner or backup of any kind in the initial, fact-finding phase of an unknown situation. She can also handle herself in any sort of situation she encounters; she can live off the land as well as a highly trained military veteran can, and hard experience with some down-and-dirty street fighting taught her to use whatever weapon is near to hand when necessary to survive. Habitually carries about her person a number of small, concealed tools that can also be weapons.

  Adept: Telepath, quite powerful, and with a solid shield. Has more control than many telepaths and can focus narrowly to read only one mind. Her range as a telepath is about sixty percent.

  Appearances: Hidden Salem

  FINN DEVERELL

  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 a 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. Finn is an empath.

  Appearances: Hidden Salem

  MIRANDA BISHOP

  FBI Special Crimes Unit—thirties, tall, with long black hair and electric blue eyes, strikingly beautiful, very athletic.

  Job: Special Agent, investigator, profiler, black belt in karate and a sharpshooter.

  Adept: Touch-telepath, seer, remarkably powerful; possesses unusual control, particularly in 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

  PSYCHIC TERMS AND ABILITIES

  (As Classified/Defined by Bishop’s Special Crimes Unit and by Haven)

  Absolute Empath: The rarest of all abilities; this one causes the psychic to literally absorb the pain of another, to the point that the empath physically takes on the same injuries, healing the injured person and then healing herself.

  Adept: The general term used to label any functional psychic; the specific ability is much more specialized.

  Clairvoyance: The ability to know things, to pick up bits of information, seemingly out of thin air.

  Dream-projecting: The ability to enter another’s dreams.

  Dream-walking: The ability to invite/draw others into one’s own dreams.

  Empath: One who experiences the emotions of others, often up to and including physical pain and injuries.

  Healing: The ability to heal injuries to self or others, often but not always ancillary to mediumistic abilities.

  Healing Empath: An empath sometimes has the ability to not only feel but also heal the pain/injury of another. It can be extremely dangerous for the healing empath, depending on how serious the pain or injury they attempt to heal, since it always depletes their own life energy.

  Latent: The term used to describe unawakened or inactive abilities, as well as to describe a psychic not yet aware of being psychic.

  Mediumistic: Having the ability to communicate with the dead; some see the dead, some hear the dead, but most mediums in the unit are able to do both.

  Precognition: A seer or precog’s ability to correctly predict future events. The SCU differentiates between predictions and prophesies: A prediction can sometimes be changed, even avoided, but a prophesy will happen no matter what anyone does to try to change the outcome.

  Psychometric: The ability to pick up impressions or information from touching objects.

  Regenerative: The ability to heal one’s own injuries/illnesses, even those considered by medical experts to be lethal or fatal. (A classification unique to one SCU operative and considered separate from a healer’s abilities.)

  Spider Sense: The ability to enhance one’s normal senses (sight, hearing, smell, etc.) through concentration and the focusing of one’s own mental and physical energy.

  Telekinesis: The ability to move objects with the mind; a very rare ability.

  Telepathic mind control: The ability to influence/control others through mental focus and effort; an extremely rare ability.

  Telepathy (touch and nontouch, or open): The ability to pick up thoughts from others. Some telepaths only receive, while others have the ability to send thoughts. A few are capable of both, usually due to an emotional connection with the other person.

  UNNAMED ABILITIES INCLUDE

  The ability to see into time, to view events in the past, present, and future without being or having been physically present while the events transpired. Another rare ability, it seems to be a combination of clairvoyance, precognition, and sometimes mediumistic traits, though the ability is so rare it hasn’t been studied in depth.

  The ability to render someone else instantly unconsciousness.

  The ability to “freeze” a person momentarily so that they are unable to move—or to move them using the force of energy alone, as if by a violent shove.

  The ability to see the aura or another person’s energy field, and to interpret those colors and energies. Through experience, trial, and error, the SCU has come to a tentative understanding of what the different colors usually mean:

  White = healing/protective

  Blue/lavenders = calm

  Red/rich yellows = energy/power

  Green = peaceful; unusual, tends to mix with other colors

/>   Metallic = repelling or holding in energy from another source

  Black = extreme negativity, even evil, especially if it has red streaks of energy and power

  More than one color in an aura is common, reflecting the outward sign of human complexities of emotion.

  The ability to absorb and/or channel energy usefully as a defensive or offensive tool or weapon. Extremely rare due to the level of power and control needed, and highly dangerous, especially if the energy being channeled is dark or negative energy.

  The ability to hide or disguise an object or person.

  The ability to communicate with animals, which is part telepathy and part empathy—and part something else.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The first books in the Bishop/SCU series were published back in 2000, and readers have asked me whether these stories are taking place in “real” time and if, at this point, more than twenty (!) years have passed in the series. The answer is no. I chose to use “story time” for several reasons, one being to avoid having my characters age too quickly. Roughly speaking, each trilogy takes place within the same year, with some overlaps.

  So, from an arbitrary start date, the timeline looks something like this:

  Stealing Shadows—February

  Hiding in the Shadows—October/November

  YEAR ONE:

  Out of the Shadows—January (SCU formally introduced)

  Touching Evil—November

  YEAR TWO:

  Whisper of Evil—March

  Sense of Evil—June

  Hunting Fear—September

  YEAR THREE:

  Chill of Fear—April

  Sleeping with Fear—July