“Jesus, woman! You can call, you know? What’s the point of having telepaths if you’re gonna pop in uninvited?”

“I wanted to speak to you in person,” she replied. After a moment’s hesitation, her wide hazel eyes appraising me, she commented, “You look horrible.”

“Thanks. You too.” That wasn’t actually true. She looked pretty good even though I prefer women with a little more meat on their bones, not to mention a few decades younger. Though not my usual type, Rachelle carried all the grace of a super-model minus the revealing clothes, much to my regret. With no visible flesh of any perverse value to focus on, I dropped into my old recliner and stared at the spreading puddle on my carpet. This day just kept getting worse. Spilled beer and zero cleavage. Was there no mercy? As always, Rachelle seemed a bit lost, vapid. I used to believe it was a side effect of her connection to the supernatural world. Recently, however, I’d come to believe she’d just been a little too experimental back in the sixties. I could picture her at Woodstock, flowers painted on her face, offering the goods up to Jimi Hendrix, looking for an experience.

I stopped my thought process there. There were just some things that didn’t need to be imagined. I was treading dangerously close.

After a minute of awkward silence and her glancing about the room as I wandered about inside my head, she got down to business. “As you know, Abraham sent me to check the gates.” She laid out a small map of the city on the coffee table. I waited a few seconds after her voice trailed off, but it didn’t seem like she intended to continue. “And?”

Her eyes focused. “The gates themselves are stable. I sense no abnormal fluctuation in them.