Sizzle and Burn (The Arcane Society #3)(77)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Zack?” Fallon’s voice, emanating from the small phone, sounded faint and tinny. “Is that you?”

Zack took the phone from Raine’s hand, leaned forward and kissed her very thoroughly. By the time he raised his head she was tingling from head to toe.

“Zack?” Fallon was shouting now. “You there? Talk to me, damn it.”

“Later,” Zack said somewhat absently into the phone. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

He ended the call, dropped the phone into a pocket and went back to kissing Raine.

Fifty-eight

They were gathered in her living room, drinking the first of the two bottles of Oregon pinot noir that Gordon had brought along. He and Andrew claimed they both needed the wine for medicinal purposes while they recovered from the shock of events. The pair occupied the sofa, the cats stretched out between them. Zack was in one of the two reading chairs. Raine took the other.

“How did you figure out where she hid the journal?” Andrew asked. “Did you know about the wall safe?”

“No.” Raine looked at the leather-bound book lying on the coffee table. “But this morning I suddenly remembered the painting on the wall of her bedroom. It was the first of her mask series. “In hindsight, I realized it must have been inspired by Wilder Jones.”

Gordon glanced at the volume on the coffee table. “What did you find in that journal?”

She fortified herself with a swallow of wine and set down the glass. “My father injected himself with his version of the formula.”

“Damn.” Gordon’s silver-gray brows shot straight up. “That certainly explains a few things.”

“I’ll say,” Andrew agreed.

“I know what you’re all thinking,” she said. “Judson Tallentyre sounds like the original mad scientist.”

“No,” Zack said. He drank some wine and lowered his glass. “Within the Arcane Society, that honor belongs to my ancestor Sylvester Jones.”

Raine looked up, startled. “You’re calling the founder of the Arcane Society a mad scientist?”

“Well, technically speaking, I guess you’d have to label him a mad alchemist, given that he lived in the late sixteen hundreds. Don’t think the word scientist was used in those days. It amounts to the same thing, though. Sylvester was unquestionably brilliant, and there’s no doubt but that he was a powerful sensitive. But it’s also no secret, at least in the Jones family, that he was obsessed, paranoid and probably delusional, at least toward the end.”

“Interesting family history,” Andrew observed drily.

“Family tree is riddled with what the Society euphemistically likes to call exotics,” Zack said. “But in Sylvester’s case, I think there’s a strong possibility that some of his quirks were exacerbated by the experiments he ran on himself.”

Andrew frowned. “Sylvester Jones invented the original version of the formula?”

“Along with what was supposed to be the antidote,” Zack said. “But in the Victorian era, the Society found out the hard way that the antidote doesn’t work. In the late sixteen hundreds Sylvester died alone in his laboratory, which became his tomb. No one knows for sure what killed him, but there’s a widely held theory in the family that he probably poisoned himself with his own formula and died because the antidote failed.”

Gordon absently stroked Batman and looked at Raine. “I suppose your father took the risk with his version of the formula because he was convinced it would work.”

“Yes.” She picked up her glass and swallowed some wine. She was going to need it to get through the rest of the story. “He also injected Aunt Vella with the drug.”

There was a short, horrified silence while they all absorbed that news.

Andrew closed his eyes in pain. “That probably explains a few more things.”

“The drug worked,” she continued evenly. “It dramatically enhanced both my aunt’s and my father’s psychic abilities. But Dad soon realized that there were problems. He and Aunt Vella began to have difficulty controlling their parasenses. Their normal senses were affected, as well.”

“The old instability problem,” Zack said.

“My father immediately stopped all research on the enhancing formula and went to work on an antidote. He believed he was making progress. During the last year of his life he worked day and night in the lab. He was desperate to save himself and Aunt Vella.”

Andrew looked at her. “He found something?”

“Yes,” she said. “He began giving the antidote to Aunt Vella and himself, even though it was still highly experimental. It was a course of injections designed to be taken over a period of several weeks so that the results and side effects could be closely monitored. But Dad was killed in the car accident before either of them completed the series. They were each supposed to take one more dose.”

Zack went very still. “That’s why the two of you went to his lab the night of the funeral.”

She nodded. “Aunt Vella writes in the journal that she was desperate to take the last injection of the antidote. By then she had realized that she had been sleeping with the enemy. She knew that when Wilder found the lab, he would destroy everything in it.”

“Did she get the final dose?” Gordon asked, riveted.

“Yes.” Raine took another sip of wine and lowered the glass. “I remember her driving us to the lab that night. She knew the code that unlocked the door. Once we were inside, she sat me down in a chair and gave me one of my favorite books to read. It was about horses. I loved that book, but that night I couldn’t concentrate.”

“No mystery there,” Andrew said. “You were traumatized because you had been to your father’s funeral that day.”

“At the lab she went into the small room where my father had installed a special refrigerator.” Raine watched the flames dance in the hearth. “Wilder Jones and his men stormed through the door a short time later and started taking the place apart. Aunt Vella rushed out of the refrigerator room and scooped me up in her arms. She was crying and screaming at Wilder. The next thing I knew we were sitting in the back of the car, being driven home by one of Wilder’s men.”

“She took the last dose of the antidote that night,” Zack said, looking very thoughtful. He switched his attention to Andrew and Gordon. “How long was it before you started seeing signs that she was in trouble?”