Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

We’re now twelve books into the Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series, and because of that we’ve decided to begin including a bit of additional information for the benefit of both new and longtime readers. We’ve based these offerings on the type of mail and email I receive, letters and notes asking specific questions.

So here in Blood Ties you’ll find about a dozen footnotes throughout the book, all titles of earlier books in the series. I’ve found that many readers want that information, asking in which book a specific character was introduced or specific events took place. I hope the footnotes will provide that information quickly and easily.

Here at the end of the book, I’ve also provided brief character bios of the SCU team members appearing in Blood Ties , bios of the Haven operatives involved in the story, and a list of psychic abilities and their SCU definitions.

Jaylene Avery

Job: Special Agent.

Adept: Psychometric, is able to pick up impressions from objects. Sees her ability as a tool, pure and simple, and is less interested than most of the others in the scientific aspects of the paranormal.

Appearances: Hunting Fear, Blood Ties

Bailey

Job: Special Agent, guardian.

Adept: Open telepath, but her strength is a powerful shield she’s able to extend to protect others.

Appearances: Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties

Miranda Bishop

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

Adept: Touch-telepath, seer, remarkably powerful and 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, Noah, due to their intense emotional connection, and together they far exceed the scale developed by the FBI to measure psychic talents.

Appearances: Out of the Shadows, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties

Noah Bishop

Unit leader (Chief, Special Crimes Unit), founder

Job: Special Agent, profiler, top investigator, sharpshooter. Has a few unusual abilities he deliberately cultivated, including lock-picking and computer hacking, and is licensed as a pilot.

Adept: Touch-telepath, exceptionally powerful. Also possesses secondary or “ancillary” ability of enhanced senses (hearing, sight, scent) familiarly known as “spider sense,” as well as the shared (with his wife) ability of precognition. Was driven to found the unit out of a strong desire to bring psychic ability into the mainstream as a useful investigative tool. Totally committed to his unit—and extraordinarily committed to his wife.

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

Diana Brisco

Job: Special Investigator.

Adept: Medium, specializing in the ability to “walk” with spirits in an eerie corridor between life and death she calls the gray time. Like many mediums, also possesses some healing ability, though hers is virtually latent.

Appearances: Chill of Fear, Blood Ties

Reese DeMarco

Job: Special Crimes Unit Operative, pilot, sharpshooter. Has specialized in the past primarily in undercover operations. Ex-military.

Adept: Telepath, powerful. Possesses an apparently unique double shield, which sometimes contains the unusually high amount of sheer energy he produces. Also possesses the primal ability to sense a threat to himself or someone physically near him.

Appearances: Blood Sins, Blood Ties

Dr. Sharon Edwards

Job: Special Agent, forensic pathologist.

Adept: Picks up vibes from objects.

Appearances: Out of the Shadows, Blood Ties

Galen

Job: Special Investigator, watchdog, guardian, pilot.

Adept: Regenerative self-healer. Also ex-military.

Appearances: Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Hunting Fear, Blood Sins, Blood Ties

Tony Harte

Job: Special Agent, investigator, profiler.

Adept: Telepath. Not especially strong, but able to pick up vibes from people, particularly emotions.

Appearances: Out of the Shadows, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil , Sense of Evil, Hunting Fear, Blood Ties

Quentin Hayes

Job: Special Agent, investigator, profiler.

Adept: Seer, developing spider sense. His abilities are beginning to change after the events of Blood Sins .

Appearances: Touching Evil, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Blood Sins , Blood Ties

Dean Ramsey

Job: Special Agent.

Adept: 5th degree clairvoyant. Ex-military.

Appearance: Blood Ties

Hollis Templeton

Job:Special Agent, profiler-in-training.

Adept:Medium. Perhaps because of the extreme trauma of Hollis’s psychic awakening (see Touching Evil) , her abilities evolve and change more rapidly than those of many other agents. Even as she struggles to cope with her mediumistic abilities, each investigation in which she’s involved seems to bring about another “fun new toy” for the agent. In Blood Dreams , she begins to see auras, the energy fields surrounding individuals. And in Blood Sins and Blood Ties , other new abilities catch her unaware.

Appearances: Touching Evil, Sense of Evil, Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties

John and Maggie Garrett

Husband and wife co-founders of Haven, a civilian organization of psychics who tend to be a bit too offbeat, unusual, or otherwise unsuited for official police work, yet serve well as investigative and undercover operatives in some investigations, most often in conjunction with Special Crimes Unit cases. Maggie is an exceptionally strong empath/healer; John is not psychic.

Gabriel Wolf

Job:Investigator.

Adept:Shares with his twin sister a unique symbiotic relationship; each displays psychic abilities only while sleeping, using his or her twin as a conduit. They are telepathic with each other, as well as clairvoyant and mildly telekinetic.

Appearances: Blood Dreams, Blood Ties

Roxanne Wolf

Job:Investigator.

Adept:See Gabriel Wolf info.

Appearances: Blood Dreams, Blood Ties

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