Fired Up (Dreamlight Trilogy #1)(46)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

She and Jack had departed sometime later in the back of one of the half dozen Harper Fine Furnishings delivery vans that came and went all day long from the secure warehouse at the rear of the store. In addition to their new credit cards, ID and phones, Jack had a sparkling clean laptop. The discreet departure had been accomplished with the customary Harper efficiency.

She walked to the table and stopped, looking down at the lamp. “You sure you’re ready to do this?”

He watched her from the opposite side of the table. “It’s not like I have a choice. What about you?”

She knew she had to sound confident for his sake.

“Ready,” she said. “First step here is to light the lamp. I think either one of us can do that, but once it’s burning, you’re the only one who can push up the power level.”

“How do I do that?”

“I’m afraid it’s going to be an intuitive thing. The process should come naturally to you because the lamp is already tuned to your wavelengths. We’ll take it slow and easy, though. Whatever we do here, we definitely do not want to lose control of the power in this gadget.”

“It’s that dangerous?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” She paused. “But I can’t tell you how or in what way it’s dangerous. Power is power, though. You have to respect it.”

She went around the suite, turning off the lights. The room was plunged into a darkness lit only by the cold light of neon and a desert moon. In the shadows she could see Jack silhouetted against the uncovered window.

She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the night and then made her way back toward him. In the dim light she managed to collide with a chair.

“Ooph.” She was going to be bruised in the morning.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, sure. Fine.” So much for the air of confident professionalism, she thought. She rubbed her thigh and continued on to the table. “Okay, here we go.”

She heightened her senses, probing gently for the latent currents in the lamp. Energy shifted ominously in the artifact. Slowly it began to glow, giving off a weak, pale light.

“That’s as far as I can take it,” she said quietly. “Your turn.”

Jack did not respond, but she felt the energy level rise in the room. Psi heat stirred her senses. The skin on her arms prickled. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted. Her pulse beat faster. Excitement and anticipation revved through her.

The lamp got brighter. She went hotter and became uncomfortably aware of the residue of lust, some of it earthy and natural, some of it sick and disgusting, that stained the suite. Traces of gambling fever were everywhere in the room. The unwholesome light of other kinds of addictions glittered malevolently as well. Not even the strongest cleaning chemicals could touch dream energy. The lust on the bedding in the other room reeked.

She tuned out the extraneous energy and focused on the lamp. Fingerprints of dark, hot ultralight fluoresced on the strange metal, seething and pulsing in the shadows. Acid greens mingled with impossible shades of paranormal blues, blacks and purples. Until now she had resisted looking at the artifact with all of her senses flung wide. Now that she had looked at it, she could not turn away.

Some of the dreamlight residue on the lamp was old and glowed with a disturbing iridescence that she recognized as the hallmark of raw power. For the first time panic skittered on little rat feet across her senses. What had she gotten herself into?

She took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to do it. For Jack.

“Your ancestors left their prints on the lamp,” she said. “The earliest could easily be a few hundred years old.”

“Nicholas Winters.” Jack’s voice was low but it was freighted with the energy he was generating.

“The hues and shades and the patterns of the wavelengths are similar in some ways to your own. Psychic genetics at work. There’s another set of particularly powerful prints. Newer but well over a century old.”

“Griffin Winters.”

She studied some of the other traces of dreamlight on the lamp. “I can also see the prints of the women who worked the lamp. The oldest still burns with rage and despair and an overpowering need for vengeance.”

“Eleanor Fleming, the first woman who worked the lamp. She’s the one who bore Nicholas a son and then used the energy of the lamp to destroy Nicholas’s talent.”

She shivered. “Here’s the really sad part: On some level, deep in her dreamscape, she loved him, or at least she was bonded to him.”

“Because of the child?”

“Yes. In turn, Nicholas was obsessed with her, probably because he realized that she was the key to controlling the power of the lamp. Those two obviously had issues.”

“What about Griffin Winters and Adelaide Pyne?”

She studied the second set of strong dreamprints with all of her senses. It took power to control power. Griffin and Adelaide had both possessed off-the-charts talent.

“There was a bond between them as well. It was definitely sexual in nature.” She stilled. “Maybe that’s the real key to controlling the lamp.”

“What?”

“Some kind of psychic link between the Winters man and the dreamlight worker.”

“Hold it right there,” Jack said. “Don’t try to tell me that the couple that works the lamp together has to be in love. Thought you said you were not a romantic?”

“Trust me, we’re not talking about anything as vague and ephemeral as romantic love,” she assured him. “But everyone knows that there is a lot of psi generated during sex. Maybe that’s why we wound up in bed last night.”

“You think the lamp made us do it? Okay, that’s an original excuse.”

“Think about it. We’d been near it for hours, and that sucker gives off a lot of energy. Who knows what kind of influence it exerted on our auras?”

“You definitely are not a romantic, are you?”

“Told you, I can’t afford to be. Not with my talent.”

“Fine. But keep one thing in mind: We were attracted to each other before we found the lamp.”

“Yes.” She studied the lamp. “But I wonder if that’s because . . .”

“It’s because we’re attracted to each other,” he growled. “There’s no need to blame it on psychic voodoo.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy.”

“Let’s get back to business here. Can you work this thing or not?”