“Her car is still parked at the curb. Her dog was inside. He was howling.”
“I heard a dog. I was going to call animal control.” Barbara paused. Anxiety tightened her features. “But for some reason, I never got around to it. Every time I went to look for the phone number I got a headache.”
“May I come in, Mrs. Rollins?”
“No, I don’t know you.”
Hector started barking again. He was somewhere at the rear of the house.
Barbara flinched.
“The dog,” Jack said gently. “I should get him.”
He used a small pulse of nightmare psi to make her nervous.
“Yes, the dog,” Barbara said uneasily. “I can’t have him running around my house.”
Jack eased his way into the front hall. He found Hector at the sliding glass doors that overlooked the lake. When Jack opened the slider for him he rushed outside, charged across the garden and halted on the boat dock.
Once again he started to howl. Jack went out onto the dock and put his hand on the dog’s head. Hector quieted. Together they looked at the empty dock.
“They took her away by boat,” Jack said.
50
LARRY BROWN COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE THAN EIGHTEEN years old, and he was dying. A bulked-up hunter held open the door of the small room. Chloe took one step inside and halted. She thought she had been prepared, but she was, nonetheless, truly horrified. She hugged herself against the chills wracking her body.
“Dear heaven,” she whispered. “How could you do this to him? He’s just a kid.”
Brown was lying on a gurney, leather restraints on his wrists and ankles. He was flushed with fever. His eyes were squeezed shut against the fluorescent light. The sound of her soft voice sent a shudder through him. He whimpered.
Hulsey followed her into the room and assumed a pedantic air. “Subject A has had four doses of the newest version of my formula, the same amount that was given to Jack Winters. We halted the drug last night. Dream psi is now spilling chaotically across his senses. He is not yet insane, but he soon will be unless you can save him with the lamp.”
“That’s impossible,” she said quietly. It required everything she had to control her rage, but this was not the time to lose her temper. Hulsey might be quite mad, but he was, nevertheless, a scientist. Her only hope was that he would listen to reason. “I don’t think the lamp will work on anyone else the way it did on Jack. Only someone with his level and type of talent can handle the power.”
“Nonsense,” Hulsey snapped. For the first time he appeared annoyed. “Power is power. Subject A was initially a Level Three on the Jones Scale but he has received enough of the formula to elevate him to a seven. That should be more than enough to handle the radiation from the lamp.”
She bit back another argument. No one, including mad scientists, evidently, was immune to becoming obsessed with a theory. Hulsey was wrong, she was sure of it, but she knew that he was not going to listen to her.
Hulsey turned to the guard. “We’re ready for the lamp.”
“Yes, Dr. Hulsey.”
Chloe went to stand beside the gurney. “Can you hear me, Larry?”
She was careful to keep her voice as low and soothing as possible. Even so, Larry Brown shivered. His senses were in such chaos now that any type of stimulation was no doubt extremely painful. He did not speak, but he opened his eyes a little and looked up at her. She saw that he was drowning in fever and terror. Very gently she touched his bound hand. He jerked in response. His lips parted in a silent scream. She maintained the light contact and cautiously opened her senses.
The shock of energy that snapped and crackled across her senses was almost more than she could stand in her feverish, weakened condition. Larry Brown’s dreamlight was a dark storm of unstable psi. She managed to stay on her feet, but she had to grip the gurney rail to steady herself.
Another wave of outrage slashed through her when she saw the ravaging effects the formula had produced. Larry was well beyond being able to distinguish between his dreamscape and reality. He was living in a nightmare world.
There were voices at the door of the room. She looked up and saw two men. One of them was the hunter who had gone to fetch the lamp. He had it tucked under his thick arm.
The second man looked like a standard-issue corporate suit. He could have been an executive at an investment company. Rain dripped from his expensive coat. He wasn’t bulked up like the bodybuilder hunters, but there was an air of powerful energy about him. Her senses were still open. She glanced down at his footprints. They burned with unstable, acidic fire. Whoever he was, he was taking the Nightshade drug.
“I see you were able to make it here in time for the experiment, after all, Mr. Nash,” Hulsey said. He sounded sullen, even annoyed.
“There’s a storm in Portland,” Nash said coldly. “My plane was delayed. I told you I wanted to be on hand when you ran the test on the lamp. Why didn’t you wait until you were certain I could get here?”
“There wasn’t a moment to lose,” Hulsey said. “Subject A is failing rapidly. Another hour or two and it might well be too late to intervene with the lamp.”
There was no love lost between these two, Chloe thought, or even respect. Hulsey clearly despised Nash and, just as obviously, Nash could barely tolerate Hulsey. It was a marriage of convenience.
Nash examined Chloe for a few seconds. He did not appear impressed. She felt energy pulse and quicken in the atmosphere and knew that he had heightened his senses. She shivered again. Nash’s prints were too murky and smoky to read, but it was clear that whatever the nature of his talent, it was very, very dangerous. It was equally evident that he was struggling hard to control it.
“This is the dreamlight reader you told me about?” Nash said to Hulsey.
“Yes.” Hulsey did not bother to conceal his impatience. He took the lamp from the hunter and bustled across the room with it. “We were able to acquire her without incident a short time ago.”
“You’re certain your people weren’t seen or followed?” Nash demanded.
“Absolutely, certain. Everything went like clockwork. The para-hypnotist took care of the woman on Mercer Island.”
Chloe looked at Nash. “Who are you?”
“Your new boss.” He paused a beat. “If you’re successful here today, that is.”
Fingers of crystal and ice played a staccato drumbeat down her spine.
Hulsey set the lamp on the table next to the gurney. “Time to run our little experiment, Miss Harper. And let’s have no more nonsense about not being able to save Subject A. If you can’t manipulate the energy of the lamp in a useful manner, we will have no more use for you, and that would be a pity, wouldn’t it?”