Psychic things

Whoo.

Hokay. So waaaaaaaaay back when I had a thought about a kid who's a pet psychic. He saw the ghosts of pets, basically. And he lived in a town next to a forest where there were the ruins of this old laboratory from way back when that used to run cruel experiments on dogs. The ghosts of these dogs still haunted the area on occasion, but things didn't start getting intense until, surprise surprise, a mysterious girl showed up.
Lord, shoot me, please. *headdesk* So...cliche.
But tonight on a dog walk I was listening to Hushabye and Coming Undone from Korn and Take Me Away from Globus and something happened in my brain because I revisited the concept in a completely different way.
There's this city sitting on a ley line and it obviously attracts a lot of mischief, including ghosts. Someone, I'm thinking a woman with an eyepatch, comes to town, haunted by the ghosts of a small group of horses from the stables she used to work at. She can only see animal spirits, and only with one eye, which she keeps covered most of the time. Cliche, I know, but! That eye is actually blind. Hopefully that makes up for it a teensy bit. What happened is there was a fire that killed most of the horses. They never managed to prove the cause of it, though it was suspected to be a negligent farm hand that disappeared afterwards. They never managed to find him. This woman is haunted by the ghosts of the dead horses until she can find the man and, at that time, do something unknown. All she says to anyone is that she has a message to deliver and she's trying to find the person that needs to hear it.
When she first comes to the city she sees a ballet dancer practicing in the park. Oddly enough, he's accompanied by the spirits of two Egyptian Vultures that once belonged to the city zoo, but died do to unknown causes. As he dances, they fly around him, enhancing his movements with supernatural influence. Not enough to be immediately noticeable to the human eye if they're not looking for it. Little things--he jumps a little higher and farther and smoother than others, and they share energy with him to increase his strength and stamina. There are times he feels he can dance for days, and he probably could. Normally she keeps her eye covered, but the woman feels instinct guiding her and lifts it to witness the phenomenon.
He is unaware of his own haunting. He isn't psychic at all; in fact, he's very down-to-Earth and logical and doesn't believe in anything he can't touch or see. Convincing him of the role he has to play in her story is very difficult. She isn't sure why the vultures' spirits are attracted to him. Neither am I. Maybe he came to visit them a lot in the zoo or has the feather of an Egyptian Vulture--like his dad is an Egyptian archeologist. Or no, he's part Egyptian. They feel the sands and winds of their home in his bones.
There is someone else, another, younger woman. She sees mostly dog spirits. She is haunted by the strays that have died on the streets and in the pound of the city. They are attached to her because she is homeless herself, and unloved. I'm sure there's a tragic story in her past that's delightfully cliche, or maybe not. Maybe she's from a very loving and caring family. Maybe she's just a bitchy teenager that walked out because she's a bitch.
Silver, if you knock my glass off the table ONE MORE TIME
Howsabout this: her parents died, so she went to live with her brother and his wife. One night she yelled at him that he wasn't dad and he slapped her, so she ran away. She secretly regrets it, but she won't go back. Too proud.
She's a punk kid and has learned how to use the dog spirits to her advantage, like psychics with proper mentors do. She can command them just like a pack, and the horse woman can use her spirits'strengths to her advtange as well. The kid tends to make the dogs do the work for her, but the horse woman combines both her physical strength with theirs. She makes use of martial arts in combat, and her strongest moves are her kicks, full of literal horsepower as they kick through her. When she really needs them they can all pour their power into one kick, which would essentially dissolve someone's ribcage into mush. She doesn't use that very often at all, though. She doesn't like fighting, only doing it when necessary.
The kid, though, enjoys it. She likes feeling powerful. When the woman wanders into her territory, she gets up in arms, thinking her dogs will send the woman's horses running. On contrare, the woman effectively kicks her ass with little to no effort.
The kid is subdued, and proud, and arrogant, but she still wants to kick ass like the horse woman. She doesn't actually know anything about the world of psychics, and she can sense the horse woman is her way in. The horse woman is a naturally kind hearted person, only recently hardened by the world as she's searched for the man, so she takes the kid under her wing.
Meanwhile, vulture boy is having trouble. With something. I don't know what. Maybe he's getting harassed, by humans or spirits. Either way, he gets the Sight forced into him by some spirit gone crazy, and after that, he clings to the horse woman, who seems safe to him. After he gets over initial shock, he tries to go back to being in denial about the ghosts, which is a source of amusement for everyone.
And finally there is a fourth individual I've thought of at this point. Another woman, because I'm seeing most people in books that are important are always men. Like, it's okay to have more men than women, but more women than men is weird. Probably because women don't ever make good characters, because they can't do anything for themselves.
This other woman is older than the horsewoman, and, unlike all three of them put together, has had a proper tutorship and years of experience. She is accompanied, rather than haunted, by the spirit of a prehistoric giant hyena. In combat the hyena doesn't possess her so much as...absorb her? They sort of fuse. Most people see her just floating in the air, but psychics see her floating inside the body of the hyena. Freaky stuff.
Her intentions, dark or benevolent, are very uncertain throughout. Sometimes she's hindering, sometimes she appears to be helping. The horse woman seems to be somehow familiar with her. I'm not sure how or why or what relationship they would have had in the past.
I think I should have one other person, someone accompanied by ravens, because there aren't enough cliches in here already. No...crows. Yes. He's what would be called a murder shepherd--because a flock of crows is called a murder. Maybe he tries romantic things with the horsewoman. Who knows.
So I figure these people end up accompanying her on her journey to find the man who burned the stables down, and on the way run into some kind of conflict, like necromancer trying to do something stupid.
Whatever.
*Shrug*
S'all I got.