Saturday 26 May 2012

EXCERPT - THE MORRIGNA BY RACHEL RAWLINGS




Excerpt:

I’d been leaning up against this wall like I was the only thing holding it up for twenty minutes.  Not even at work an hour and my feet were already screaming about my choice of knee high black leather stiletto boots.  They looked better with my skirt than the sensible heels I usually wore; I tried rationalizing to my feet.  What the hell was taking Masarelli so long in there anyway?
A few minutes ago I rapped on the door to remind him I was still out here.  And not going anywhere no matter how bad he wanted to do this interrogation by himself.  I fought the urge to step back when I heard him stomping toward the door.  “Five minutes”, he all but growled at me before slamming the door in my face.
So there I was stuck in the hall waiting for him to finally open the door, giving me access to the interrogation room and the man in for questioning.  Not to mention a damned chair.  If I stood here much longer the boots were coming off.  I’m not exactly sure what these boots were made for, they obviously weren’t the ones Nancy Sinatra sang about and standing sure as hell wasn’t it either.
I glanced at my watch.  Six minutes.  Times up I thought.  Patience may be a virtue but I sure don’t have any.  I could hear Masarelli’s temper rising through the door.  Surely that was more from his lack of progress than my lack of patience.  I may not be his favorite person in the world but we’ve always managed to work together before.
“That better be your friggin’ attorney, because if it’s not I’ve got some pretty creative ways of making you talk.”  He practically spat the last few words in my face as he opened the door.
Lucky for him I wasn’t an attorney or he may be facing some charges.  Any other day I might have backed down from his lack of control over his temper but not today.  If he wanted to slip on my stiletto boots and stand out in this hallway for almost half an hour we could see how many times he knocked on the door.
At five foot eight his height was average but he knew how to fill a doorway.  I smoothed the front of my charcoal gray skirt and did my best to ignore his glare.  At my five two it wasn’t that hard to do.  I stared at the stains on his tie, avoiding eye contact, and pushed my way passed him.  He may not want me to question this suspect but it was my job and come hell or high water I was going to do it.  He’d just have to swallow his pride along with his short comings as an interrogator and let me work.
After three years of working with Masarelli on Salem’s Preternatural Task Force (S.P.T.F.) as the psychometric interrogator I still couldn’t figure him out.  Why would a “Norm” who’s obviously as uncomfortable around the “Others” as he is be working here?  He seemed more like an F.B.I suit to me, not someone who’d be working with psychics, witches, vamps and weres.  Yet here he was getting in my way.
I wasn’t more than two feet into the room when the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.  There was definitely something different about this suspect.  Besides his unusual size.  Though I must admit that did give me a second’s pause as I noticed he not only had the height of a basketball player but the width of a linebacker.  No, it was something that had my other senses on high alert.  There was power rippling through the room and it was more than my psychic energy.  What the hell was this guy anyway?  No way to find out but to touch him I guess.
I hated to touch anyone with my shields down, especially a six foot seven; easily two hundred and seventy five pound stranger who was radiating a power I couldn’t quite register but I didn’t have a choice.  There was no empty cup, pack of cigarettes, not even a pen on the table.  Not one thing he touched that I could use.  If I wanted to follow the memory link we all leave behind in our fingerprints I was going to have to shake his hand.
“Well it’s not your attorney asshole but you lucked out anyway.  This is Detective Kincade.  Kincade this is Seamus (Shaymus) O’Neill, summoner and general practitioner of the Dark Arts.”


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