20
THE NEED TO GET THE LAMP OUT OF THE CRATE, TO TOUCH it, to find out if it could save him from whatever was happening to him was a heavy, intensifying pressure. He felt as if he was trying to resist a strong gravitational field. But he would not be ruled by the demands of his senses. He was still in control of the demon inside him, and he was going to stay in control. Even if it killed him.
When they got into the cab he instructed the driver to stop first at the nearest hardware store. He left Chloe sitting in the back, the meter running, while he went inside to pick up a crow bar and a screwdriver. He was back in the car within ten minutes.
“Downtown,” he said.
The driver looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Where, downtown?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
The driver shrugged and headed for the old section of the city. When you drove a cab in Vegas, you didn’t ask a lot of questions.
Chloe didn’t ask any questions, either. She said nothing when they bypassed the glittering high-rise resorts on the palm-studded Strip and headed for the grittier, seedier downtown. She had probably guessed that he would not give her any answers as long as they were sitting in the backseat of a cab where the driver could overhear.
He was pretty sure he knew what she was thinking. She had concluded that he was now in full-blown paranoid mode. She was right. As the old saying went, even paranoids had enemies, and when one of those enemies might turn out to be J&J, it was only common sense to take precautions. If the agency did come looking for him they would start with the big hotels on the Strip because that was where someone with his kind of money would stay.
Paranoid, for sure.
The cab exited I-15 and plunged into the streets of faded, two-story motels, dingy gentlemen’s clubs, storefront casinos and gaudy, drive-through wedding chapels that cluttered what was known as Old Town.
He told the driver to stop on a side street in front of an adult bookstore.
Chloe got out and stood beside him on the sidewalk. She grasped the handle of her carry-on in one hand and her satchel in the other. Together they watched the vehicle speed away, and then Chloe turned to survey the nearby pawnshop and neighboring tattoo parlor.
“The real Vegas,” she said drily.
“Nothing’s real in Vegas.” He adjusted the crate under his arm and gripped the computer case in his other hand. The computer was not the only thing in the case. His overnight kit and a full set of IDs for a man named John Stewart Carter was also inside. He started walking. “Let’s go.”
She hurried to keep up with him. “Where are we going?”
He contemplated a sun-bleached sign halfway down the street. “What would you say to one hour in a private hot tub at the Tropical Gardens Motel?”
“The word yuck comes to mind.”
“Okay, be that way. Forget the hot tub. We’ll just get a room. But don’t say I never take you anywhere.”
At the front desk of the Tropical Gardens, there was no need to bother with the Carter ID. He just gave a fake name and paid in cash. The Vegas Way.
The bored clerk handed him a key. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers.”
They went through the small, grimy lobby, past the two senior citizens perched on the stools in front of a pair of slot machines and climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor.
“I can feel it, too, you know,” Chloe said quietly.
He knew what she meant. “It’s not just that I’m picking up on the energy coming from the lamp. The weird part is that I recognize the vibes. They’re familiar. It’s like looking into a foggy mirror.”
They stopped in front of room twelve. He shoved the key into the lock. She followed him into the shabby room. The tang of stale smoke and bleach greeted them. Chloe wrinkled her nose, but she made no comment.
“That makes sense,” she said instead.
He closed the door behind her and locked it. “It makes sense that I would recognize the energy coming from the lamp?”
“Sure.” She put down her carry-on and the satchel. “You said the lamp was created by Nicholas Winters and was later used by at least one of his descendants, Griffin Winters.”
“Right.” He set the crate on the stained, threadbare rug.
“Both men would have left their psi prints on it. You’re related to them. It’s a genetic thing.”
He looked down at the wooden box. “Can you sense the age of whatever is in this crate?”
“I can’t be absolutely certain until I see it, but the dreamlight that’s leaking out is very strong and, yes, I think that the object inside could date from the late seventeenth century.”
“Stone was so sure it came out of a modern lab.”
She shook her head, frowning a little in concentration. He felt energy shift in the atmosphere and knew that she had just pushed her senses a couple of notches higher.
“No,” she said. “The object in that box is definitely not modern.”
He met her eyes. “Is it dangerous?”
“I just sense power, Jack. Energy in and of itself is neutral. You know that.”
He studied the crate. “Just raw power?”
“A lot of it. And not all of it is masculine. Some of it is feminine.”
He looked up again at that. “Dream energy has a gender?”
“Probably not but people who leave traces of it behind certainly do. I can’t always perceive it distinctly because that kind of energy often gets muddled, but in this case some of it is very clear. At least two women of talent have handled that lamp.”
He thought about that. “Eleanor Fleming was the woman who worked the lamp for Nicholas. Adelaide Pyne was the one who worked it for Griffin Winters.”
Chloe smiled faintly. “They must have been very interesting women.”
Like you, he thought. Not just interesting. Fascinating.
“According to the records and the legends, they were,” he said instead. “It’s a fact that Eleanor worked the lamp to give Old Nick his second talent. Later she deliberately fried his para-senses with it. Figured destroying his talent would be the ultimate revenge.”
“Why did she want revenge?”
“You don’t know the tale?” he asked.
“Hey, until I met you I assumed the Burning Lamp was just another Arcane Society myth. You know, like Sylvester and his talent-enhancing formula.”
“Right, the formula. Just another legend. Okay, here’s what I know about the curse. Nicholas and Sylvester started out as friends. They were both alchemists, both strong sensitives, and both were convinced that they could not only enhance their talents but also develop additional powers by using the secrets of alchemy.”