Living with the Dead by Kelley Armstrong

breeding more clairvoyants.
    Adele touched her stomach. She'd done the breeding part, all right. Just not with the right partner. Her child would be a more powerful clairvoyant than she could have produced with Colm – the Cabal was certainly convinced of that – but to the kumpania, what she'd done was an atrocity, her child an abomination.
    Another reason for Adele to leave the group before they found out. But if she jumped at Irving Nast's current offer, he'd see her eagerness and take advantage.
    Adele was supposed to meet Irving again that morning. She hadn't dared – couldn't risk him smelling her fear. So she'd called his answering service, leaving a message saying she couldn't make it and would call to reschedule. He wouldn't like that. The longer she postponed, the sooner he'd sense trouble and try to find her.
    She had to get those photos and eliminate every trace of them. If that meant killing again – or having Colm do it for her – that was fine. After all, they were only humans. Outsiders. Inconsequential.

 
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    HOPE
     
    After getting all she could from the officer in the coffee shop, Hope made a pit stop at the True News office. Checking in, getting her mail... Hardly critical under the circumstances, but if Robyn was a fugitive and Hope was her best friend in L.A., eventually the cops were going to find their way to her door. And when they did, she might need to prove she'd been going about her day, business as usual.
    After that token appearance, Hope and Karl returned to the club. He stood watch as she circled the exterior trying to find the place closest to the crime scene. If she could find it, she might catch a vision of what had happened last night. It took some fine-tuning to pinpoint the spot, but eventually the vision came.
    Hope saw a dark room, with Portia leaning over what looked like a table. Doing lines, it seemed. She was anxious, worried about being caught, feeling guilty, telling herself this would be the last time. At a noise, Portia had jumped, a small burst of chaos exploding. She wheeled to see someone in the doorway.
    "Hello?" she said, forcing attitude into her voice. "This room's taken."
    Whatever she saw, Hope didn't. A vision wasn't like the reconstruction of an event, where she could move around and see the whole thing. It was a single-camera scene. What she saw is what she got – whatever angle, clarity and length.
    As usual, her focus was on the victim.
    "I need to use your cell phone," the intruder said. It sounded like a woman, the voice pitched high with stress, the waves flowing off her twice as strong as Portia's.
    "Like hell. There's a pay phone in the – "
    "I need your cell phone."
    "Buy your own, bitch. Now get the hell out before I call my bodyguard."
    "You didn't bring one. You only take one when you want to show off."
    Portia inhaled sharply, chaos blasting off her. "Wh – what – "
    "It's called a gun. Now give me the fucking cell phone."
    Portia opened her mouth. Only a split-second shriek escaped. Then the chaos surged, so strong it blocked the rest of the vision. Hope had to replay it twice to see the ending. Portia started to scream, reeling back, then the first bullet hit and the scream died in her throat. A second bullet struck as she was already going down, the silenced shots barely more than loud puffs of air.
    It was over quickly, the chaos surge brief but powerful, that final explosion... exquisite.
    The first time Hope had seen a vision of a recent death, there'd been no pleasure in it. Too intense. Too uncomfortable. She'd taken solace in that. It was one thing to get a thrill from hearing strangers arguing. But to enjoy another's death? She wouldn't know how to deal with that.
    Soon she had to. As her powers grew, she started to enjoy death. It was the purest, most perfect chaos imaginable. The ultimate high.
    Even if she stopped chasing weird tales for True News and investigating rogue supernaturals for the council, she couldn't escape