Fired Up Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  PROLOGUE FOR DREAMLIGHT BOOK II

  OTHER TITLES BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ

  Running Hot

  Sizzle and Burn

  White Lies

  All Night Long

  Falling Awake

  Truth or Dare

  Light in Shadow

  Summer in Eclipse Bay

  Smoke in Mirrors

  Dawn in Eclipse Bay

  Lost and Found

  Eclipse Bay

  Soft Focus

  Eye of the Beholder

  Flash

  Sharp Edges

  Deep Waters

  Absolutely, Positively

  Trust Me

  Grand Passion

  Hidden Talents

  Wildest Hearts

  Family Man

  Perfect Partners

  Sweet Fortune

  Silver Linings

  The Golden Chance

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS AMANDA QUICK

  Perfect Poison

  Third Circle

  The River Knows

  Second Sight

  Lie by Moonlight

  Wait Until Midnight

  The Paid Companion

  Late for the Wedding

  Don’t Look Back

  Slightly Shady

  Wicked Widow

  I Thee Wed

  Seduction

  Affair

  Mischief

  Mystique

  Mistress

  Deception

  Desire

  Dangerous

  Reckless

  Ravished

  Rendezvous

  Scandal

  Surrender

  With This Ring

  BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS JAYNE CASTLE

  Obsidian Prey

  Dark Light

  Silver Master

  Ghost Hunter

  After Glow

  Harmony

  After Dark

  Amaryllis

  Zinnia

  Orchid

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada),

  90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,

  Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd,

  11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive,

  Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books

  (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2009 by Jayne Ann Krentz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any

  printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy

  of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Krentz, Jayne Ann.

  Fired up / Jayne Ann Krentz.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15211-9

  PS3561.R44F

  813’.54—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses

  at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors,

  or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control

  over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my brother, Steve Castle:

  with love and thanks for the

  insider’s tour of Vegas

  THE DREAMLIGHT TRILOGY

  Dear Reader:

  The Arcane Society was founded on secrets. Few of those secrets are more dangerous than those kept by the descendants of the alchemist Nicholas Winters, fierce rival of Sylvester Jones.

  The legend of the Burning Lamp goes back to the earliest days of the Society. Nicholas Winters and Sylvester Jones started out as friends and eventually became deadly adversaries. Each sought the same goal: a way to enhance psychic talents. Sylvester chose the path of chemistry and plunged into illicit experiments with strange herbs and plants. Ultimately he concocted the flawed formula that bedevils the Society to this day.

  Nicholas took the engineering approach and forged the Burning Lamp, a device with unknown powers. Radiation from the lamp produced a twist in his DNA, creating a psychic genetic “curse” destined to be passed down through the males of his bloodline.

  The Winters Curse strikes very rarely, but when it does the Arcane Society has good reason for grave concern. It is said that the Winters man who inherits Nicholas’s genetically altered talent is destined to become a Cerberus—Arcane slang for an insane psychic who possesses multiple lethal abilities. Jones & Jones and the Governing Council are convinced that such human monsters must be hunted down and terminated as swiftly as possible.

  There is only one hope for the men of the Burning Lamp. Each must find the artifact and a woman who can work the dreamlight energy that the device produces in or
der to reverse the changes brought on by the curse.

  In the Dreamlight Trilogy you will meet the three men—past, present and future—of the Burning Lamp, all passionate descendants of Nicholas Winters. Each will discover some of the deadly secrets of the lamp. Each will encounter the woman with the power to shape his destiny.

  And ultimately, far in the future, in a world called Harmony, one of them will unravel the lamp’s final and most dangerous mystery, the secret of the Midnight Crystal.

  I hope you will enjoy the trilogy.

  Sincerely,

  Jayne

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF NICHOLAS WINTERS, APRIL 14, 1694 . . .

  I shall not long survive, but I will have my revenge, if not in this generation, then in some future time and place. For I am certain now that the three talents are locked into the blood and will descend down through my line.

  Each talent comes at a great price. It is ever thus with power.

  The first talent fills the mind with a rising tide of restlessness that cannot be assuaged by endless hours in the laboratory or soothed with strong drink or the milk of the poppy.

  The second talent is accompanied by dark dreams and terrible visions.

  The third talent is the most powerful and the most dangerous. If the key is not turned properly in the lock, this last psychical ability will prove lethal, bringing on first insanity and then death.

  Grave risk attends the onset of the third and final power. Those of my line who would survive must find the Burning Lamp and a woman who can work dreamlight energy. Only she can turn the key in the lock that opens the door to the last talent. Only such a female can halt or reverse the transformation once it has begun.

  But beware, women of power can prove treacherous. I know this now, to my great cost.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF NICHOLAS WINTERS, APRIL 17, 1694 . . .

  It is done. My last and greatest creation, the Midnight Crystal, is finished. I have set it into the lamp together with the other crystals. It is a most astonishing stone. I have sealed great forces within it, but even I, who forged it, cannot begin to guess at all of its properties, nor do I know how its light can be unleashed. That discovery must be left to one of the heirs of my blood.

  But of this much I am certain: The one who controls the light of the Midnight Crystal will be the agent of my revenge. For I have infused the stone with a psychical command stronger than any act of magic or sorcery. The radiation of the crystal will compel the man who wields its power to destroy the descendants of Sylvester Jones.

  Vengeance will be mine.

  PROLOGUE

  Capitol Hill neighborhood, Seattle...

  The two-block walk from the bus stop on Broadway to her apartment was a terrifying ordeal late at night. Reluctantly she left the small island of light cast by the streetlamp and started the treacherous journey into the darkness. At least it had stopped raining. She clamped her purse tightly to her side and clutched her keys the way she had been taught in the two-hour self-defense class the hospital had offered to its staff. The small jagged bits of metal protruded between her fingers like claws.

  Should never have agreed to take the night shift, she thought. But the extra pay had been too tantalizing to resist. Six months from now she would have enough saved up to buy a used car. No more lonely late-night rides on the bus.

  She was a block and a half from her apartment house when she heard the footsteps behind her. She thought her heart would stop. She fought her instincts and forced herself to turn around and look. A man emerged from a nearly empty parking lot. For a few seconds the streetlight gleamed on his shaved head. He had the bulky frame of a bodybuilder on steroids. She relaxed a little. She did not know him, but she knew where he was going.

  The big man disappeared through the glass doors of the gym. The small neon sign in the window announced that it was open twenty-four hours a day. It was the only establishment on the street that was still illuminated. The bookstore, with its window full of occult books and Goth jewelry, the pawnshop, the tiny hair salon and the payday loan operation had been closed for hours.

  The gym was not one of those upscale fitness clubs that catered to the spandex-and-yoga crowd; it was the kind of facility frequented by dedicated bodybuilders. The beefy men who came and went from the premises did not know it, but she sometimes thought of them as her guardian angels. If anything ever happened to her on the long walk home, her only hope was that someone inside the gym would hear her scream and come to help.

  She was almost at the intersection when she caught the shift of shadows in a doorway across the street. A man waited there. Was he watching her? Something about the way he moved told her that he was not one of the men from the gym. He wasn’t pumped up on steroids and weights. There was, instead, a lean, sleek, almost predatory air about him.

  Her pulse, already beating much too quickly, started to pound as the fight-or-flight response kicked in. There was a terrible prickling on the nape of her neck. The urge to run was almost overwhelming, but she could hardly breathe now. In any event, she had no hope of outrunning a man. The only refuge was the gym, but the dark silhouette on the other side of the street stood between her and the entrance. Maybe she should scream. But what if her imagination had gotten the better of her? The man across the street did not seem to be paying any attention to her. He was intent on the entrance of the gym.

  She froze, unable to make a decision. She watched the figure on the other side of the street the way a baby rabbit watches a snake.

  She never heard the killer come out of the shadows behind her. A sweaty, masculine hand clamped across her mouth. A sharp blade pricked her throat. She heard a clatter of metal on the sidewalk and realized that she had just dropped her only weapon, the keys.

  “Quiet or you die now,” a hoarse voice muttered in her ear. “Be a shame if we didn’t have time to play.”

  She was going to die, anyway, she thought. She had nothing to lose. She dropped her purse and tried to struggle but it was useless. The man had an arm around her throat. He dragged her into the alley, choking her. She reached up and managed to rake her fingernails across the back of his hand. She would not survive the night but she could damn well collect some of the bastard’s DNA for the cops.

  “I warned you, bitch. I’m really going to take my time with you. I want to hear you beg.”

  She could not breathe, and the hand across her mouth made it impossible to scream. To think that her fallback plan had always been to yell for help from the gym.

  The alley was drenched in night, but there was another kind of darkness enveloping her. With luck she would suffocate from the pressure of his arm on her throat before he could use the knife, she thought. She’d worked in the trauma center at Harborview. She knew what knives could do.

  A figure loomed at the entrance of the alley, silhouetted by the weak streetlight behind him. She knew it was the man she had seen in the doorway across the street. Two killers working as a team? She was so sunk into panic and despair that she wondered if she was hallucinating.

  “Let her go,” the newcomer said, coming down the alley. His voice promised death as clearly as the knife at her throat.

  Her captor stopped. “Get out of here or I’ll slit her throat. I swear I will.”

  “Too late.” The stranger walked forward. He was not rushing in, but there was something lethal and relentless about his approach, a predator who knows the prey is trapped. “You’re already dead.”

  She felt something then, something she could not explain. It was as if she was caught in the center of an electrical storm. Currents of energy flooded her senses.

  “No,” her captor shouted. “She’s mine.”

  And then he was screaming, horror and shock mingling in a nerve-shattering shriek.

  “Get away from me,” he shouted.

  Suddenly she was free-falling. She landed with a jolt on the damp pavement. The man with the knife reeled back and fetched up against the alley wall.

  The unnerving ener
gy evaporated as swiftly and mysteriously as it had appeared.

  The killer came away from the wall as though he had been released from a cage.

  “No,” he hissed, madness and rage vibrating in the single word.

  He lurched toward the other man. Light glinted on the knife he still clutched.

  More energy shivered in a heavy wave through the alley.

  The killer screamed again, a shrill, sharp screech that ended with stunning abruptness. He dropped the knife, clutched at his chest and dropped to the pavement.

  The dark figure loomed over the killer for a moment. She saw him lean down and realized that he was checking for a pulse. She knew that he would not find one. She recognized death when she saw it.

  The man straightened and turned toward her. Fear held her immobile. There was something wrong with his face. It was too dark to make out his features, but she thought she could see a smoldering energy in the dark spheres where his eyes should have been.

  Another wave of panic slammed through her, bringing with it a fresh dose of adrenaline. She scrambled to her feet and fled toward the street, knowing, even as she ran, that it was hopeless. The creature with the burning eyes would cut her down as easily as he had the killer with the knife.

  But the monster did not pursue her. A block away she finally stopped to catch her breath. When she looked back she saw nothing. The street was empty.

  She had always hoped that if the worst happened on the way home she might get some help from the men in the gym. But in the end it was a demon that had saved her.

  1

  DREAMLIGHT GLOWED FAINTLY ON THE SMALL STATUE OF THE Egyptian queen. The prints were murky and thickly layered. A lot of people had handled the object over the decades, but none of the prints went back any farther than the late eighteen hundreds, Chloe Harper concluded. Certainly none dated from the Eighteenth Dynasty.