“Don’t worry, we’re good.” Never let the client see you sweat. “Piece of cake.”
The radiation emanating from the lamp was brighter, more intense now. From the heavy base to the flared rim it pulsed with energy. She watched, fascinated, as wispy tendrils of ultralight twisted and curled. Slowly the strange metal alloy became first translucent and then transparent. The psi fire swirling within it was clearly visible.
“Jack, it’s working,” she whispered.
“I can feel it,” he said. His voice roughened with something other than psi. “I can feel your energy, too.”
He was still drenched in shadows and the icy shades of moon and neon, but the rising tide of dreamlight etched his stern features. His hard, ascetic profile was revealed in the dark hues that emanated from the far end of the spectrum.
The transformation of the lamp was complete. The artifact now appeared to be fashioned of pure, clear crystal. As Chloe watched, all but one of the stones in the rim began to change, too. Each burned with inner fire. No longer opaque, the illuminated crystals took on distinct shades of dreamlight. One shone with a dazzling silver white light. Another radiated fiery crimson energy. Currents of surreal blues and purples, greens and amber lanced from other crystals in the rim.
“The Burning Lamp,” she said, enthralled.
“Yes.” Jack’s voice was fierce and tight.
“But why is one stone still cold?”
“It must be the last crystal forged by Nicholas, the one he called the Midnight Crystal. He wrote that it was the most dangerous of them all.” Jack looked at her. “Do we need it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She probed gently. “It feels blank. Like plain glass or quartz. If there is power in it, I can’t sense it or work it.”
“Maybe it is just ordinary glass. By all accounts, Nicholas was flat-out crazy at the end, and he was losing his talents. He was obsessed with vengeance. In that state of mind he might have convinced himself that he had infused a chunk of plain glass with great power.”
Cautiously she touched the artifact, hoping intuition would guide her. A jolt of what felt like electricity slammed through her when her fingers came in contact with the transparent metal. It was like brushing up against another person’s dream energy but a hundred times worse. She did not let go. She wasn’t at all certain that she could let go, not until she had finished what had been started.
And suddenly she knew what to do next, what had to be done.
“Put one hand on the lamp,” she said.
Jack did as instructed. His jaw clenched when he touched the artifact. She knew that he had gotten the same initial shock that she had received.
“Take my hand,” she said.
He closed his free hand around hers. More electric psi flashed through her, stronger this time. It was all she could do to bite back a cry of pain. Jack’s fingers tightened around her fingers.
She waited a moment, bracing herself for more of the disturbing shocks, but there were none.
“We’re in,” she whispered. “Our wavelengths are resonating with those of the lamp, thanks to you.”
“Me?”
“I don’t think anyone who didn’t have your genetic pattern could get this far. I’m riding your currents, but I think I can control the rhythm and pattern of the lamp’s energy. Sort of like riding a really big, really strong stallion.”
His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “I’m the stallion?”
“And I’m the rider. You’ve got the raw power, but I’ve got the reins.”
“Under other circumstances, that could be a really interesting visual. Now what?”
“We’re going to do this slow and easy,” she said. “Got a feeling there could be some heavy blowback on both of us if I move too fast.”
Jack did not respond. He was gazing into the heart of the lamp, riveted by whatever he saw there.
Slowly, carefully, relying entirely on her intuition, she began to work the energy of the crystal stones, stabilizing the wild currents of psi. She was already running hot psychically, but now she was starting to become physically aroused as well and not in a generic sense. She wanted to mate—there was no other word for it—and not with just any man. She wanted Jack and Jack alone. She craved him, lusted after him, hungered for him, just as she had last night when she had used her energy to shatter the trance.
“This is getting weird,” she said softly.
Jack’s hand was clamped around hers like a manacle, but he did not look up from the shifting energy of the lamp.
“You’re a woman of power,” he said, his words thick with lust and hunger.
It was all she could do not to hurl herself into his arms.
Get a grip, she thought. It’s the lamp that’s doing this to us. Got a job to do here. The client needs you.
“Open your senses to the max,” she ordered quietly. “I need to be able to see the entire range of your dream spectrum.”
Energy surged in the room. Hot ultralight flashed and crashed in the small space. She knew that Jack was fully, completely fired up, in the zone. The scope of his talent was breathtaking.
With an effort of will, she ignored the surges of sexual longing cascading through her. There is a kind of freedom in celibacy. Yeah, right.
Carefully she studied Jack’s ultralight currents. What she saw stunned her. The channels between the waking state and the dreamstate were open, even though Jack was awake and running hot. What’s more, the connection between the two states was stable. By all the laws of para-physics, that was supposed to be impossible.
Although the channels were open and stable for the most part, there were some places on the spectrum where the currents were slightly erratic. The disturbed areas appeared to be slowly healing, but she was pretty sure she could speed up the process.
With a skill that came intuitively, she steadied the psychic radiation of the lamp and guided it so that it resonated with the wavelengths in the disturbed areas of Jack’s dream channels. Within seconds the erratic areas steadied and began pulsing in a healthy fashion.
“That should take care of the nightmares and the hallucinations,” she whispered. “Now I wonder if I can do something about that medication you’ve been taking.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth when the lamp flared even higher, creating a storm of ultralight. It was as if her little mending job had turned a key in an invisible paranormal lock, releasing the final level of power within the artifact.