Fired Up Read online

  The velvet bag fell away, revealing the artifact.

  “Drake Stone was right,” she said. “It’s not what anyone would call attractive, but there is something fascinating about it.”

  The lamp stood about eighteen inches high. It looked very much as Jack had described it. Narrow at the base, it flared out toward the rim. It was fashioned of a strange, gold- toned metal that looked oddly modern, as Drake Stone had said, but ancient alchemical designs were worked into it. Large, murky gray crystals were positioned in a circle just below the rim.

  She looked at Jack. He was studying the lamp with rapt attention, an alchemist gazing into his fires. Currents of psi pulsed strongly in the room. The energy was as dark as that of the lamp, but there was a thrilling, disturbingly sensual quality to it. She recognized it immediately: Jack was in the zone. She realized something else as well: Her own senses were responding to his energy, starting to resonate a little.

  She folded her arms tightly around herself and concentrated on the lamp. She felt a sudden need to break the crystalline atmosphere that had settled on the room.

  “How does it work?” she asked.

  Jack did not answer for a few seconds. When he did, she got the impression that he’d had to summon the will to look away from the lamp.

  “Damned if I know,” he said. “Adelaide Pyne’s journal supposedly contained some advice and directions, but it vanished. Without it, all I’ve got is you. If you can’t fix the damage, my options are nonexistent.”

  She eyed the lamp, uncertainty tingling through her.

  “You’re absolutely sure you’ve been damaged?” she asked.

  His jaw hardened, and his eyes heated. “We’ve been over this. I’m a double-talent and my second talent is lethal. That is not a good thing. Who knows how long I’ve got before I start going crazy?”

  “Okay, okay,” she said soothingly. “It’s just that, well, you seem so stable. In control.”

  “For now.”

  The grim, haunted look in his eyes told her that he was braced for the worst-case scenario. He was not in a mood to listen to a glass-half-full view of the situation. What did she know about the lamp, anyway? It was his lamp and his curse. He was the expert here, not her.

  She walked around the table, studying the lamp from every angle.

  “What happened to Adelaide Pyne’s journal?” she said.

  “The story is that a rare books dealer came to see my grandmother one day while my grandfather was out of town on a business trip. The dealer claimed to be in the market for personal diaries and journals from the Victorian era. She told him that she didn’t have any to sell, but she showed him Adelaide’s journal. A few weeks later she noticed that it was missing.”

  “The dealer stole it?”

  “That’s what Grandmother always believed.”

  “If the rare books dealer knew about the journal, I wonder why he didn’t want to see the lamp, too?”

  “She said he asked about old lamps, but at that point she started to feel uneasy. She told him that she didn’t have any antique lamps. That much was true. My father was married by then, and she had already given him the lamp. She didn’t give him the journal at the same time because she had forgotten about it. In any event my parents moved to California shortly after that. The lamp disappeared along the way.”

  “Did you ever try to find the rare books dealer?”

  “Sure. I spent months trying to locate him. But the trail was completely cold from the start. It’s like he never existed.”

  Chloe took a deep breath and put her fingertips on the rim of the lamp. Dream energy shivered through her. She drew her hand back very quickly.

  “I need some time with this thing,” she said. “I’ve got to analyze the latent energy that I’m sensing in it. I’ve never experienced anything like it. There’s a lot of power here. If I screw up . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

  “How much time?”

  Clients were always in a rush, she thought.

  “A few hours should do it,” she said. “I should know by then whether I can handle this thing. But before I even begin to study it, I need food. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Something tells me that working the heavy-duty dreamlight in this lamp is going to create a major psi burn. I’ll need all my reserves.” She paused a beat to make sure she had his attention. “And so will you.”

  Jack did not look pleased, but he did not protest. He was impatient, desperate, even, but he was not stupid. They were about to mess with some very serious energy. He knew as well as she that it would not be smart to sail into that kind of lightning storm without all their resources in good working order.

  He went to the window and twitched the curtains aside. “There’s a café across the street. The sign says it’s open twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Like most things in Vegas.”

  He unzipped the duffel bag and stuffed the lamp into it. Then he picked up his computer case. She collected her satchel. They went downstairs, through the lobby and across the cracked, weed-infested parking lot. The early December night had fallen hard on the desert, but the street was brightly lit with aged, sparking and flickering neon.

  The windows of the café were as dingy as the one in the motel room. Beer signs offered a cold welcome. The laminated tops of the tables in the booths looked as if they had been wiped with a very old, very dirty sponge. At the small bar, three people sat hunched over their drinks. They were all staring at a ball game on television, but none of them showed any real interest in it.

  The waitress looked as hard and weathered as the café, her features ravaged by smoking and bad cosmetic surgery. But her long legs, the artificially enhanced bosom and the underlying bone structure of a once-beautiful face testified to a previous career. Former showgirl, Chloe thought.

  “This town is like the Bermuda Triangle for beautiful women,” she said softly. “Sucks ’em in and drowns them. But still they keep coming here in endless waves. I’ve never been able to figure out why.”

  Jack gave her an odd look before glancing at the waitress.

  “Do you feel sorry for everyone you meet?” he asked, turning back. “I would think that would be a real handicap in your line of work.”

  For some obscure reason she felt obliged to defend herself. “I just wondered about the waitress, that’s all.”

  “So you spin a little story about her that probably has no basis in reality, and suddenly you feel sorry for her.”

  “Take another look, Jack.”

  “Not necessary. I’ll go with the odds. Given that this is Vegas and that a lot of former showgirls end up waiting tables, it’s a good bet she’s on the same downwardly mobile career path.”

  They ate their sandwiches and greasy fries in silence. Jack paid for the meal in cash. Chloe glanced at the stack of bills he left on the table. She smiled.

  “You overtipped,” she said. “I mean, way overtipped.”

  “Everyone overtips in Vegas. Sends the message that you’re a winner.”

  “Hah.” She smiled. “You left her the big tip because you felt sorry for her. Admit it.”

  “I admit nothing. But I’ll tell you this much, it was a damn fool thing to do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people remember big tippers.”

  22

  “I KNOW YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS,” SHE SAID, “BUT I can’t concentrate with you pacing the room and pausing to look over my shoulder every five minutes. It’s distracting, to put it mildly.”

  He came to a halt near the tiny bathroom and looked at her across the bed. “Sorry.”

  “What’s more you’re still burning psi to overcome your sleep deprivation,” she added. “I realize that you want to get this done as fast as possible, but even if by some miracle I get the lamp figured out right away, you’re in no shape to take a big dose of paranormal radiation. You’re exhausted. Get some sleep.”

  His eyes tightened ominously at the corners. “You’re right.
I don’t want to hear any of that.”

  “Listen to me, Jack. You need rest before we tackle this artifact. Whatever happens with this experiment you will require all of your talent to deal with it. If you refuse to get the sleep you need, I won’t work the lamp for you.”

  “Damn it, Chloe, I’m paying you to do a job.”

  “You’re not paying me enough to take the risk of accidentally killing you,” she shot back. “Trust me, it would not be good for future business.”

  He contemplated her with a brooding air. For a moment she thought he was going to refuse. Then he nodded once.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “I’ll take the meds. Knock myself out for a few hours.”

  “No meds,” she said sternly. “Not when we’re going to be dealing with a lot of powerful dream energy. It’s too dangerous. The effects are going to be unpredictable enough as it is. We don’t need the complications that sleeping medication might produce.”

  Wearily he massaged the back of his neck. “When I use the meds I don’t sleepwalk.”

  “The pills may be knocking you out, but you aren’t getting the real rest that your senses need. You require sleep, Jack, quality sleep. Trust me on this.”

  “I’m not taking any chances. When I sleepwalk I lose control.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  His mouth twisted in a cold smile that she knew was meant to be intimidating. “You’re the main reason that I’m not going to take the risk. A few nights ago I killed a man while I was in a fugue state, remember?”

  “Only because you were trying to protect someone else. Don’t worry—I’ll keep an eye on you. If you show signs of weirdness or sleepwalking I’ll wake you up.”

  “Do you really think you could pull me out of one of those episodes?”

  “How hard could it be?” she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  He looked at her, not speaking.

  She sighed. “It’s just dream energy. I can handle it.”

  “But if you can’t? I have no way of knowing what I’ll do when I’m in that condition.”

  “Relax. You won’t hurt me.”

  “What makes you so damn sure?”

  “I’ll admit that the ability to read dreamlight doesn’t have a lot of practical applications, but it is very useful when it comes to figuring out whether or not someone is likely to be dangerous.” She waved a hand at the carpet behind him. “I can read your prints. You’re not a danger to me.”

  “Not in the waking state.”

  “And not in the sleeping state. Now, go down to the front desk, book the adjoining room and get some sleep.”

  He looked at the bed. “I can take a nap here.”

  “No,” she said, keeping her tone very even. “You cannot under any circumstances sleep in this room. I won’t be able to work if you do.”

  He frowned. “Why not? I won’t be pacing, and I won’t be looking over your shoulder—I’ll be asleep.”

  She had tried to explain the complications of her talent to a few men over the years, but none of them had accepted the explanation, not really. Most, like Fletcher, had simply concluded that she was either deluded or that she had major intimacy problems. But Jack was different, she thought. Not only was he a strong talent, but he also had problems of his own with dream energy. Maybe he would understand.

  “When people sleep, they dream, whether they are aware of it or not,” she said patiently. “I’m fine around most folks when they’re awake. Unless they’re mentally or emotionally unbalanced, their dream energy is suppressed. I only notice it if I open my senses and look at their prints. But when they’re asleep, they produce a lot of uncontrolled ultralight from the dream spectrum. If they are in close proximity, I have to concentrate hard to tune out the currents, and if I do that, I won’t be able to focus my attention on the lamp.”

  He gave her a considering look. “Must be kind of weird.”

  “Weird doesn’t begin to describe it.” A small shudder went through her. “Adult dream energy at full throttle is chaotic and weird and just way too intimate. I find it deeply disturbing.”

  “What about kids’ dream energy?”

  She shrugged. “I’m okay with that. The ability to dream seems to be something that develops over time. It usually matures along with everything else in the teenage years. The dreamlight of babies and children is generally so pale that I can usually ignore it.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Jack said. “You can’t sleep with a man.”

  “Not in the literal sense, no.”

  “That’s why you practice serial monogamy, as you call it. Why your relationships don’t last. Why you’ve never married.”

  “Why I used to practice serial monogamy. I’m celibate now, remember.” She managed her best client smile. “But back in the day I was every man’s secret fantasy. A woman who doesn’t mind having an affair with no strings attached.”

  He contemplated that for a while. “It’s an interesting concept,” he agreed without inflection.

  For some irrational reason, that hurt. She turned back to the lamp.

  “Get the adjoining room, Jack,” she said. “I’ll make sure you don’t wander off.”

  23

  ULTRAVIOLET DREAMLIGHT STIRRED SLOWLY, SLUGGISHLY deep within the lamp. Like some primordial sea beast aroused from hibernation, the faint currents of energy shifted and swirled. She watched the rising glow, excitement and fascination sweeping through her. It was nearly midnight, but she had finally managed to make the artifact heat a little with psi. She was on the right track.

  She had turned off the room lights earlier in order to be able to focus more intently. She was sitting in darkness, transfixed by the faint light of the lamp, trying to sort out the currents when the jolt of awareness struck. It came out of nowhere, shattering her concentration in a heartbeat. It took her a few seconds to realize that the disturbing new energy was not coming from the lamp. Jack.

  She jumped to her feet and whirled to face the entrance of the adjoining bedroom. There was enough light from the cold neon of the casino sign across the street to show her that the door was still closed. She released the air she had not realized she had been holding in her lungs.

  Jack was dreaming. But he had been asleep for nearly two hours and until now she had not been bothered by any stray dream vibes. He was in the other room with the door closed between them. She shouldn’t even be able to sense him from this distance. The energy that she was picking up not only was very strong but also carried the taint of some kind of heavy sedative.

  He had promised her that he wouldn’t take any meds.

  She crossed the room, made a fist and rapped loudly on the door.

  “Jack? Are you okay?”

  There was no response. Cautiously she opened the door, expecting to see Jack lying on the bed. But he wasn’t there. He was on his feet, looming directly in front of her.

  “Jack. For Pete’s sake, you scared the living daylights out of me.” She glanced behind him and saw that the bed was still fully made. She could see the depression of his body on the bedspread where he had sprawled earlier. He had removed only his shirt and shoes. He was still in his trousers and black crewneck T-shirt. In the sparking neon light his face was an implacable mask, but his eyes burned with psi. So did the footprints on the carpet behind him.

  “Jack?”

  “I’ll keep you safe.” The words were spoken in a chilling monotone, devoid of all nuance and emotion. It was the voice of a man in a trance.

  She braced herself for the shock she knew was coming and touched his shoulder. To her amazement there was no electric crackle across her senses. She couldn’t believe it. She was touching a person who was deep in the dreamstate, but her senses were not recoiling from the brush with the energy field.

  She badly wanted to think about what it all meant, to try to figure out the implications. But there was no time. She had to deal with Jack’s sleepwalking.

  He seemed unaware of her finger
tips on his shoulder. Cautiously she pulsed a little more energy, searching for the pattern of the sleepwalking currents. She found it quickly.

  “Jack, wake up,” she said.

  “You’re in danger.”

  “Not now. Not tonight. Not from you.” She set up a dampening current, trying to interrupt the heavy flow of fugue-state energy. There was no response. That was not good news. By now he should have been fully awake. “Jack, can you hear me?”

  He raised a hand and touched her face, his eyes hot in the shadows. “I’m dreaming.”

  Another kind of energy suddenly infused the atmosphere. It was elemental, fiercely masculine and stunningly sexual. It rattled her senses like the first winds of an oncoming storm striking the closed windows of a well-sealed house. She was suddenly disoriented and, for the first time, seriously alarmed.

  But underneath the rising tide of uncertainty and confusion she was aware of the sensual heat shimmering to life inside her. She knew what sexual attraction felt like. Under normal circumstances the pleasant warmth and the sense of arousal were nothing she couldn’t suppress or ignore if necessary. But what was happening now could no more be ignored than lightning. And it was probably just as dangerous.

  “Yes, you’re dreaming,” she said. Her voice sounded a little husky to her own ears.

  She pulled more energy, struggling to push through the compelling distraction created by the currents of desire so that she could zap Jack with a stronger jolt of dreamlight. She tightened her grip on his shoulder.

  Psi flashed across the spectrum. To her heightened senses the energy looked like iridescent snow falling through the beams of a car’s headlights. She had no idea how Jack perceived the sparkling, glittering waves of light, but she felt the change in the pattern instantly.

  Jack did not simply emerge from the trance—he slammed into the waking state riding shockwaves of energy. The currents of psi roared over her own energy field, swamping the delicate pulses of dreamlight she was generating.

  For a few seconds she felt consciousness start to slide away into a very deep hole in the ground. The room spun around her. The neon moonlight outside the window blazed as bright as a spotlight. Instinctively she covered her eyes with her arm, but that offered no protection. When she was using her other senses she perceived light psychically, not with her normal vision.