Evocation: Book I in The Summoner's Circle

Book 1: The Summoner's Circle

by S.T. Gibson

Genres: Romantic Fantasy; Urban Fantasy; Gothic; Fantasy Romance; Paranormal Romance; Polyamory Romance

Synopsis

The Devil knows your name, David Aristarkhov.
 
As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father’s death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he’s curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society.
 
But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David’s days are numbered, and death looms at his door.
 
Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he’s ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other’s care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good…
 
The first book in a spellbinding and vibrant new series from The Sunday Times bestselling author of A Dowry of Blood.

 

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Release date: May 28, 2024

Publisher: Angry Robot

Print pages: 402

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

DAVID

David pulled up to the haunted house ten minutes before he was expected, because arriving late was for amateurs and getting there too early was for interns. He used three of those minutes to sit in the Audi and review case notes for an upcoming deposition on his phone. Technically, it wasn’t six yet, which meant he was technically still on the clock for his day job. Not that he ever really clocked out of working as a prosecutor for the city of Boston. He just spent his nights expanding his vocational horizons.

He had been juggling full-time work and a thriving private occult practice ever since graduating law school, not to mention weekly secret Society meetings, and he would rather donate his entire fortune to charity than walk away from any of it. David was like a diamond, forged under pressure and bound entirely in hard, cutting edges.

At two till, David straightened his collar in the rearview mirror, ran a hand through his wavy bronze hair, and locked up his car. Tonight’s client was an eccentric heiress with a penchant for the occult and a recently dead husband, which was right up David’s alley. He could be in and out before eight, with time for a workout and an hour or so answering work emails before bed. It was his ideal type of day: packed to the brim with meaningful, lucrative work and centered entirely around himself. The only thing that could possibly make it better was a round of athletic sex, which was off the table for reasons relating to David’s lack of interest in almost all the men in Boston and his ironclad marriage to his work, or a stiff drink, which was off the table for reasons related to David’s sanity and general well-being.

The widow lived in an ivy-covered Brookline brownstone with black-shuttered windows closed tightly to the world. David had to knock three times to get an answer, and when the door finally opened, it was only an inch.

“Who’s there?” a reedy voice from inside demanded.

David tried – to no avail – to peer inside the darkness of the house. “David Aristarkhov.

We spoke on the phone?”

“David who?” she pressed.

David flipped open his wallet and thumbed through the glossy cream business cards work had given him until he came to a few embossed black cards hidden in the back. He slipped one free and held it out between his fingertips through the crack in the door. The silver script gleamed like a knife under the bright spring sunlight.

Spirit Medium and Psychic Intuitive.

“I don’t know,” the woman said after a moment. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know if my Levi would want me to try and contact him after all this time. Come back tomorrow. We’ll see how I feel then.”

Cold feet, then. Typical. There was no way he was cutting his losses and driving back to Fenway now, though. Not now that he was wired after a long week on the job and ready to, quite literally, raise the dead.

“Miriam,” David said, every syllable deliberate. His voice had the timbre of smooth, polished brass, without a trace of anything less than all-American. It was a voice curated for conveying utmost surety and bulldozing anyone who got in his way. “Why don’t you just open the door a little bit, and you and I can talk about it?”

There was a long pause, but then the widow obeyed him. People usually did, when he asked nicely. It was one of the innate, uncanny abilities that had been with him since childhood, like mediumship or perfect pitch.

The door swung open to reveal a wizened but glamorous woman in her seventies, wearing a purple silk headscarf and large tortoiseshell glasses. She took David in appraisingly, flicking her eyes across his wood-inlay summer Rolex and monogrammed cufflinks. He was still dressed for his day job, in his bespoke shirt and slacks that cost more than what most men paid for their wedding suit. The Aristarkhovs had money so old you could have exhibited it in the Hermitage: vodka-exporting, fur-trapping, wartime-advising money. Champagne-in-the-box-seat money.

Discreet-exit-from-the-public-eye-when-wealth-became-unfashionable money. David had never been interested in denying himself any of the comforts his inheritance provided.

“I just don’t know if I’m ready to talk to him again, is all,” she said, a little quieter.

David gallantly took her small hand between his own, pressing gently. He was better with the dead than he was with the living, but he could feel the apprehension wafting off her like a perfume gone sour. Best to lay on the charm a little bit to put her fears at rest.

“That’s what I’m here for. You wouldn’t have called me if we weren’t meant to do this together. It will be wonderful, I promise. Now why don’t you invite me inside?”

She nodded absently and stepped aside, muttering something about being willing to try anything once. Entry secured, David dropped his pleasantries at the door and strode past her into the house. She stared at him as though baffled at how quickly she had let down her defenses. David simply gave her a wry smile over his shoulder.

It was whispered that a long time ago, before Martin Luther had even written his treatise and plunged Europe into holy war, an Aristarkhov made a deal with the Devil. One thousand years of servitude for an apprenticeship in the art of persuasion, with a crash course in the occult arts thrown in to sweeten the pot. It was difficult to say whether there was any truth to the claim. But it was true that David’s grandfather had been gifted entire stables of thoroughbred horses simply by asking for them, and that his father stole his prima ballerina mother away from her debut in Giselle by draping her in his coat and telling her that a car was waiting outside.

David rolled up his sleeves, revealing the thickly inked monas heiroglyphica tattooed on the inside of his right arm. It was a sigil meant to represent the principles of alchemy distilled into universal power. David had gotten it when he was young and drunk on his own invincibility, but of all the occult symbols he could have chosen to get marked on him forever, it wasn’t the worst option.

He spread his fingers, testing the aura, air pressure, and electrical currents of the room. The familiar cold malaise of dead energy curled around his

fingers, lighting up the psychic intuition in the base of his brain. His whole body relaxed into the sensation, comforted by the familiarity of restless ghosts.

“I’m going to need a quiet room to work in and an object that belonged to your late husband,” David said, “and a sparkling water, if you have one.”

David Aristarkhov didn’t believe in the Devil. But he was certainly willing to work with everything his birthright had given him.

An hour later, David was holding Miriam’s hand in a dimly lit room while she wept gently. A glass of water – still, not sparkling – sat untouched on the table between them, along with David’s phone, facing up, black screen on display. David only lugged around a crystal ball when he was doing a group séance at a private event. Today, the dark mirror of his iPhone worked perfectly well to scry into and decipher messages from beyond the grave.

“Levi is only restless because you’re having so much trouble letting him go,” David said, the script smooth and rote in his mouth. “He’ll be able to rest easy once he knows you’ve settled into life without him. And then he’ll stop rearranging the furniture while you’re asleep. These things just take time.”

Miriam dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Will you ask him if he misses me where he is? Please?”

David resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This was always the million-dollar question, and the answer was always something along the lines of “yes and no,” but he asked it anyway, turning his attention down on the black screen. A familiar drowsiness filled his limbs as his consciousness drifted deeper into an intuitive state, his mind opening wider.

He was born to do this. It was as natural to him as breathing.

All at once, David was knocked back by a psychic blow to the head. He reeled, eyes stinging, and his teeth ground against each other painfully.

David had been put in his place by spirits before. He had been scratched up by poltergeists, dragged around the room by demons, tortured with nightmares by the dead who refused to let him rest until they could. It took a lot to make him uncomfortable, and even more to scare him.

But now he was battling back a terror so big he felt seven years old again, frozen by the bedside of a mother dying terribly and slow.

David gasped, ripping his hands out of Miriam’s. He felt like he had been doused in freezing water, and he shivered uncontrollably as cold passed through him in waves. His vision went indigo at the corners, tightening into a claustrophobic tunnel, but then he was out of it again, taking in so much light and color that his eyes hurt.

Something spoke to him, so close that he knew it had to be coming from inside his own head.

SON OF ANATOLY

Whatever that was, it had nothing to do with Miriam, or with the ghost of her dead husband. This was something entirely new. It felt like he was channeling a spirit directly, only he hadn’t invited this one in. The voice had simply asserted itself and expected him to listen.

“Is everything alright?” Miriam asked. She looked like she was going to pat his shoulder reassuringly, and David would rather die first. He pulled together a smile and glanced down at his watch, angling his body away from any of her pity.

“Everything’s fine. But unfortunately, it looks like we’ve reached the end of our time together. Do you want to book a follow-up session?”

Ten minutes later, David left the townhouse a few hundred bucks richer and considerably shaken up, though he took care not to show it on his face. He had put Miriam at ease with some well-placed jokes and flattery, total child’s play, and had gotten out before she’d realized anything was wrong.

David loitered outside his car to have a cigarette, turning his phone over in his hands as he sucked down the nicotine-laden smoke.

He nearly dismissed it entirely. He almost headed home to shake off whatever funk he was

in and turn his attention back to the next case on his to-win list.

But something nibbled at him, burning in the back of his skull in the same spot that acted up when he was near a murder site, or on the precipice of making contact with the dead.

There was an opportunity here – for connection, for reaching out and seizing a moment that might not pass by him again anytime soon.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his messages until he found Rhys’s name.

He had to scroll back pretty far.

David’s thumb hovered over the name, his palms suddenly clammy. His heart leaped into his throat, pounding a rhythm in his jugular. This wasn’t exactly a good idea, but it was the best chance he would have at making contact for a long while.

He and Rhys didn’t have real conversations, not these days. They avoided each other at social events and sniped at each other occasionally during Society meetings, rarely venturing further than to ask the other to pass the ceremonial salt during a spirit summoning. David had made a promise, after all. He had sworn to keep his distance, to let Rhys live his own life outside of the realm of David’s influence or interest. They were supposed to be acting like perfect strangers.

Not like two men who had been as close to each other as blood and breath, once.

David decided, with a lick of pettiness flaming behind his ribs, that he was done keeping his distance. It had been six months since the incident. If Rhys wasn’t ready to talk now, he was never going to be.

David shot off a quick text.

What do you know about possession?

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

RHYS

Rhys McGowan stood with feet planted, pointing his flame-bladed dagger into the heart of the ceremonial circle. His flawless Latin chanting echoed clearly through the darkened room. Twelve white taper candles of exactly the same height flickered on the ground in a ring of beckoning light.

He had been preparing for this evocation for nearly a month: blending resins into an incense that the spirit would find pleasing, meticulously chalking out the proper magician’s seals onto the hardwood floor, and taking so many ritual baths he was sure he would smell of frankincense for weeks.

The temperature in the room slid downwards as shadows stirred in the study’s darkest nooks. Something moved in the corner of his eye, but Rhys didn’t let himself get distracted. He was used to the scare tactics these things used when they didn’t want to show themselves fully. Summoning was all about the follow-through, and he was willing to stand here chanting for an hour if it got him what he wanted.

Realistically, this sort of ritual was well within his realm of expertise. The spell was a classic, lifted from The Lesser Key of Solomon, and he had pored over the instructions for summoning, binding, and bending the demon to his will so many times that he could recite them in his sleep. Still, he liked to be prepared, and the grimoire lay open to the correct page at his feet.

As Rhys commanded, an entity began to take shape within the circle. Slowly, darkness clung to darkness and grew into a light-swallowing swirl. Primary source texts indicated that today’s spirit favored a classic black mass manifestation, so as shadows began to clump together over the chalked triangle used to trap spirits, Rhys knew he was doing his job right.

He doubled down on his intonation, leaning into the binding words that would render the spirit powerless to harm him. Initial contact was for making

an entity amenable, whether through cajoling or threats, to one’s wishes. Rhys had spirits at his disposal that he could summon with simpler methods. But he was in the market for a new demon to round out his stable, and nothing beat the feeling of accomplishment that came with dragging something onto the material plane for the first time.

He had been scared out of his mind by spirits before. He had taken ill after conjurations gone wrong or woken up to find every stitch of furniture in his house turned upside down. But he always kept coming back for more. No matter the promises he made to himself or to his wife, he could never stay away for long.

As a result, he had gotten very, very good at this.

The spirit strained against its bonds, but Rhys was stronger. He splayed his fingers and drove it down with divine names, compelling it into submission.

The thrill of bending something ancient and undying to his own will coursed through Rhys like electricity. He wondered, not for the first time, if this counted as something he ought to confess to before Mass. But then again, there was a long tradition of holy men subjugating the powers of darkness with divine names, blessed water, rosaries, and more. So Rhys was in good company, even though he would balk at being called holy himself.

Rhys’s cell phone trumpeted out a text message notification, shattering his focus.

His shoulders sagged, and the entity within the circle made a rumbling sound like laughter that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Rhys fumbled with the incantation, eyes flipping desperately down to pick up his place in the book, but he could already feel the spirit straining against the cage he had been weaving around it.

He was losing his grip on it.

The spirit wiggled free from its bonds and disappeared. Nothing but the scent of wick-smoke and a clammy feeling of dread was left behind.

Rhys swore softly under his breath. His head fell forward, chin hitting his chest, and he rubbed at the back of his aching neck.

There was a Saturday wasted

wasted.

Drawing a lazy sigil through the air with his fingers, Rhys closed the spiritual doorway his circle had opened and shut the ritual down. Then he stomped over to the window near his desk and yanked open the curtains, letting clear April light into his study.

Stuffed bookshelves, crystal decanters, and gaudily framed pinned butterflies all vied for attention, jostling against dark paintings in the Flemish style and sticky notes reminding him to return his library books, or call his mother. A vase of irises valiantly battled with patterned china on the small breakfast nook table, and a taxidermy meerkat stood at proud attention on one of the shelves. Rhys was nothing if not a maximalist.

He blew the candles out one by one, careful not to disrupt the magic circle underfoot. Then he swiped a finger over the phone left foolishly out on the desk.

David.

Rhys furrowed his brow and disregarded the notification.

He shouldered through the door and headed towards the kitchen, disappointment clinging to him like a cloud. Missing the mark always stung. But he might be able to find time Sunday afternoon to try again. That was, if annotating his article on land deeds purchased by single women in twelfth-century Wales didn’t take too long. Specializing in medieval Welsh history hadn’t turned out to be very lucrative, and it hadn’t turned into acceptance into a Master’s program, but it was good enough for a certification in special collections and an associate position at a small university library. The spirit he had summoned to boost his charisma during the interview process hadn’t hurt, either.

Moira was in the kitchen, of course, holding court at the banged-up wooden table. She trailed her fingers across an elaborate spread of tarot cards, ombre purple nails gleaming, while another woman looked on. Moira wore her black kinky hair loose around her shoulders, and the sunlight streaming in from the window made her brown skin glow.

“Looks like you’re in a bind,” Rhys’s wife said in her sun-warmed drawl.

The client, who Rhys recognized as one of Moira’s many acquaintances, leaned further over the table. Rhys couldn’t recall her name. In addition to

the smorgasbord of women from college she kept in regular contact with, Moira had an uncanny knack for befriending baristas, hairdressers, yoga instructors, and pretty much anyone else who crossed her path. Her clients liked to whisper that it was the intuitive psychic energy she radiated, but Rhys knew it came from a deeper, more potent magic: her natural aptitude for putting people at ease.

Moira glanced down at the calculations scribbled into her composition notebook.

“You’re starting at a disadvantage with all his Piscean energy clashing with your Sagittarius heart center. You both share a Mercury in Libra, so y’all might be able to work through your differences with clear communication and a commitment to seeing things from both sides. But the cards are tuning me into a couple of red flags, I’m sorry to say.”

“Just what we need,” the client muttered. A plate of gingersnaps and a glass of iced tea sat in front of her. “Go ahead and give it to me. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t want to know.”

Rhys opened the cupboard above his three coffee makers and retrieved a bottle of homemade cardamom syrup.

Moira hooked her hair behind her ears and slid a couple of cards closer to the client. She had dusted off her box of crop tops last week to celebrate the start of spring, and was currently wearing one crocheted from baby-pink yarn.

“The two of swords illuminates inner conflict, and the nine of swords lets me know that you’ve been losing a lot of sleep over whether or not to leave this guy. You’ve been carrying all that anxiety around in your body, and it’s coming out in nightmares and nervous habits. You’ve been dealing with this all alone?”

The client swallowed and nodded, eyes a bit glassy. Moira made a knowing hum.

“I can sense that isolation. But look over here at the three of cups. See these three girls dancing and cutting up, having a good time? That’s showing me all the relationships in your life that are so full of love and support. You can lean on them.”

“You’re gonna tell

me to leave him, aren’t you?”

“Sugar, I can’t tell you to do anything. All I’m here to do is relay messages from the Divine and help you explore potential options. There is no right and wrong in this room. Just potentials.”

Rhys scooped ice out of the freezer by hand to avoid the belligerent rattle of the dispenser, then poured himself a glass of cold brew. He tried to slip out quietly without disturbing the session further, but Moira threw a glance at him before he made it to the door.

“Can I get a second opinion?” she asked.

Rhys drifted behind Moira’s chair, settling a hand on her shoulder, and she tipped her head back for a kiss. She smiled against his lips when he obliged her, enveloping him in the familiar intoxication of her sandalwood and rose perfume.

Rhys leaned over Moira’s shoulder and ran his fingers across the swirling watercolor illustrations arranged on the table. These were Moira’s cards, more abstract than his classical deck that lined up nicely with traditional accordances. But he was learning, slowly, to speak their language of death, rebirth, and transformation. His eyes leapt from card to card, minding reversals and major themes as he pieced together a story from symbols.

It was not a happy one.

“You’ve got to leave him,” he pronounced. “Seriously. He’s never going to be able to give you the affirmation you need. Also, it looks like he’s shit at paying his bills on time.”

Moira held out a consolation gingersnap to her client, who took it with shaky fingers.

“I’m sure this is a lot to process,” Moira said, securing her notes with a star-shaped paperclip. “Sleep on it. Call your girls and ask for their honest opinion.”

“Must be nice, living with someone who gets your hobbies,” the client said, surveying Rhys curiously. “I didn’t know your husband was a witch too.”

He opened his mouth to start in on a lecture about semantics, about how witchcraft generally referred to ancestral practices rooted in the home and the

needs of a community, and how what he did traced its magical lineage more to monasteries and mystery cults. Instead, he settled.

“Actually, I’m a sorcerer.”

“Is that the male version?”

“No, there are male witches. The title refers to what kind of magic you do; gender is irrelevant.”

Moira’s painted lips tugged up into a private smile as the client struggled to follow.

“But you do magic, like her. You can read tarot cards and stuff.”

“And more.”

“So you’re a witch.”

Moira leaned conspiratorially over the table to her friend, eyes sparkling. “That’s right. He’s even got a coven.”

“Oh my God,” Rhys groaned. “For the last time, it isn’t a coven!”

“Sorry, sorry,” his wife said, hiding her smile with a sip from her iced tea. “My mistake. It’s a very secret boys’ club. No girls allowed.”

“It’s an occult fraternity,” Rhys said crisply.

“Oh, I get it,” the client said, easing into familiar territory. “My brother was in a fraternity at UMass. Aren’t you a little old for that?”

Rhys kneaded his brow while Moira laughed. Arguing was useless.

He bided his time as Moira hugged her client and walked her to the door, and as she accepted her cash payment with you-shouldn’t-have graciousness. She always managed to make a skilled service come across as a goodwill favor, and she refused to raise her rates despite Rhys needling her about competitive markets and calculating her per-hour value.

When she returned to the kitchen, flipping bills between her fingers, Rhys shot her a warning look.

“You’re mean.”

“Little old me?”

“Yes, you,” he insisted. The fight was already slipping out of his voice.

“No, I’m sweet.”

“Sweet, huh?” he asked, looping an arm around her waist. He pulled her in close enough to feel her warmth against him, see the microscopic shimmer she mixed into her makeup sparkling on her cheeks.

She kissed him slowly, reddening his mouth with her lipstick, but he didn’t care. She tasted like mischief.

“Shouldn’t you be summoning demons?” she murmured.

“Demon got spooked and took off.”

“Was I being too loud?”

“No, I was an idiot and left my ringer on.”

Moira fixed his hair, smoothing the dark curls out of his eyes. He probably looked paler than usual after a long winter spent barricaded indoors with his books.

“Who was it?”

“No one.” A heartbeat passed, the longest span of time he could comfortably hold a lie to her in his body. “David.”

She hummed her disapproval, and Rhys leaned back against the hard, cold countertop. Moira wasn’t the type to leave old connections unsevered, and she had a hard time understanding Rhys’s ability to carry on professional correspondence with David. Especially after what had happened the last time he paid them a visit.

“I didn’t answer,” Rhys said.

“You’re grown; I’m not going to tell you what to do. What did he want, anyway?”

“Nothing. Something about demon possession. He’s baiting me.”

“This is why I don’t fool with the dead. Someone asks you to call up dear departed grandma and the next thing you know, you’re hip-deep into some dark stuff. You haven’t texted each other in what? Six months? I told you he’d crack eventually.”

“David isn’t exactly

a paradigm of self-restraint.”

“He’s got no boundaries, is the problem,” Moira declared. “This is why he’ll make a piss poor High Priest.”

Rhys gave her an affronted look. “Have a little faith, please. The votes aren’t even in yet.”

“He’s a legacy, and that club of yours runs on nepotism. You know I support you, baby, and you’d make a fantastic High Priest. But you shouldn’t expect David to go down without a fight.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Rhys said, and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. They ached from peering at tiny type in a darkened room, but the pain was familiar. He would need glasses before he was thirty if he kept on like this.

“You were in there for two hours,” Moira said, voice a little softer as she squeezed his free hand. “Why don’t you take a break?”

“I’ve still got a lot to clean up, and notes to take. Do you have any more clients today?”

“I’ve got a man coming in looking for a money-drawing spell tomorrow, but I’ll need to do my prep work tonight. Moon’s in a mighty fine position for abundance.”

“We’ll have dinner together afterwards, then, I promise. Italian? My treat.”

“You’re bribing me with breadsticks to get me off your case.”

“I am.”

Moira took a long drink of his cold brew. “I’ll let you. But one of these days, you’re gonna hit your limit, Rhys McGowan.”

“I like being busy. You knew this when you married me.”

“And I consider it my God-given duty as your wife to make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground.”

He took his glass back, kissed Moira on the cheek, and slipped out of the sunny kitchen. The door to his study lay open before him, inviting him back into familiar darkness. “You can tell God I’ll review his demands and get back to him later. For now, I’ve got spirits to summon.”

 

CHAPTER THREE

DAVID

In the all-encompassing whirlwind of twelve-hour days in the courtroom, the attorney’s office, and in private clients’ living rooms, David almost forgot about the text entirely. It had only been a little indiscretion, a way to test the waters. If Rhys wasn’t biting, fine. It wasn’t as if they could keep avoiding each other outside of Society meetings and pretending they didn’t know each other during conclave ritual circle forever. Rhys would cave eventually.

But on Thursday a week later, as David shouldered open the door to his condo, his phone buzzed in his briefcase. He tossed the briefcase on the marble-topped kitchen island and let the call ring through while he rummaged through the sparse refrigerator for a pre-portioned dinner. It was probably one of the interns calling with a fire that wasn’t his to put out. Or Leda, holding up her end of their unending game of sibling phone-tag. The voicemail notification, however, took him by surprise.

While the plate rotated in the whirring microwave, he flicked his phone on to speaker mode. Rhys’s voice filled the airy emptiness of the pristine condominium as the sun set over the skyline out of the window.

“David. We talked about this. I asked for space. I’ll reach out when I’m ready.”

That was it. No timeline about when they could start talking normally again, no indication of how Rhys might be feeling about any of it. Just a curt message to enforce the embargo.

David stabbed a fork into his chicken breast and steamed broccoli. He shouldn’t be surprised. Rhys knew him better than anyone. He knew when David was goading him.

Nudging aside a Barney’s shopping bag he had picked up on his last mindless trip to Copley but never unpacked, David sank into his leather sofa, laptop in one hand, dinner in the other.

This high above the city, the noise of Fenway couldn’t reach him, so he was left in peace to sort through the dozens of tabs he had left

 open. They were etymological, mostly, researching the transmission of that name which had been burned into his brain at the séance last week. He hadn’t had an episode like it since then, but he hadn’t felt quite like himself, either. There was a fuzzy sort of film over his psychic intuition that made him second-guess the messages he channeled for clients, and he suspected his abilities still hadn’t recalibrated themselves since he accidentally picked up on something he wasn’t supposed to.

Or alternately, ...