Sizzle and Burn

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Adrenaline splintered through her. The primitive fight-or-flight rush left her edgy and profoundly wary. Briefly she considered asking Burton to tell the mysterious Mr. Jones to leave. But she had dealt with reality often enough to know that it was a remarkably stubborn force. It didn’t go away just because one wished it away.

  A thought chilled her to the bone. What if the Mr. Jones downstairs in the lobby was the same Mr. Jones who had frightened her and Aunt Vella so badly that night all those years ago? If so, he was in for a surprise. She was no longer a six-year-old kid scared out of her wits.

  There was no help for it. She would have to find out why Mr. Jones had tracked her down here in Shelbyville.

  “Send him up, please, Burton,” she said.

  She tossed the phone into the cradle, put the cup down on the tray and rose from the sofa. It dawned on her that she was wearing only her trouser socks. Quickly she sat down again and tugged on her boots. The added couple of inches of height fortified her confidence.

  She went to stand at the window, stomach clenched, all her senses revved to the max, and listened for footsteps in the hall. It was full dark now. In spite of her determination to show no fear, she felt like a gazelle at the waterhole. The realization made her mad, which proved to be a good thing. Anger gave her strength.

  She heard the footsteps only faintly and only just before the crisp, authoritative knock on her door. Mr. Jones did not make a lot of noise when he walked.

  She took a deep breath, steeled herself and crossed the room to open the door.

  She had no preconceived notions of what Mr. Jones would look like. Her memories of the Night of Fire and Tears were not clear on that point. The events had taken place against a backdrop of shadows, shouts and chaos. She had hidden her face against Vella’s shoulder, afraid to look at the very dangerous Mr. Jones. Even at the age of six, long before the psychic side of her nature had developed, she had sensed the power in the man who stormed into her father’s lab that night.

  One glance told her that this Mr. Jones was not the same one who had frightened her and Vella all those years ago. The first Mr. Jones would be in his sixties by now. This man was only a couple years older than she was. She could not take any comfort from that fact, however, because the aura of power that surrounded him was as strong or stronger than the one that had emanated from the other Jones.

  The Mr. Jones standing in front of her was tall. Even with her boots on she was a couple of inches shorter than him. He was lean and virile, a man who was centered and comfortable in his body and his masculinity, a man in full control of himself. His hair was short and dark and his eyes were a shade of blue that made her think of glaciers and gun-metal. He wore a black leather jacket, black crewneck pullover, dark pants and low boots.

  She knew immediately that this Jones was every bit as dangerous as the one who terrified her on that long-ago night but for some crazy reason, she wasn’t frightened. The invisible energy he generated stirred the hair on the nape of her neck but she wasn’t scared, she was curiously excited. A heightened sense of awareness fluttered through her. Mentally she groped for a one-word description of the unfamiliar feeling that was sweeping through her. Her brain supplied it immediately. She was thrilled.

  “Raine Tallentyre.”

  He said her name as a statement of fact, not a question, as if he somehow recognized her, which was impossible because she was very, very certain they had never met. She would have remembered, she thought. There was simply no way she could have forgotten him or that low, controlled, compelling voice. It was a voice that could coax a woman into bed or challenge a man to a duel at dawn. It sent another shiver of raw sensation through her. She took a step back trying to put some distance between the two of them while she pulled herself together.

  “I’m Raine Tallentyre,” she said.

  “Zackary Jones. Call me Zack. I’m here to make a deal with you.”

  Okay, obviously she had just fallen down the rabbit hole.

  “What kind of deal?” she managed.

  “I need your help.” He held up a manila envelope. “In exchange, I’ll give you this.”

  She glanced at the envelope. “What’s in there?”

  He smiled the slow, confident smile of a man who is very sure he is holding all the high cards. “The missing pieces of your family history. Inside this envelope is your heritage, the one you were denied when your father was kicked out of the Arcane Society.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple. I’m the man with the answers to the questions you’ve been asking all these years.”

  Six

  He’d chosen his strategy the way he always did, with cold, calculating psychic intuition based on what he knew and could sense about his opponent. The path across Raine Tallentyre’s threshold had been clear to him as soon as he finished reading the files that Fallon Jones had provided. Very few people could resist the lure of learning the secrets of their past.

  Figuring out a person’s weak spots and anticipating their moves was part of his talent. He wasn’t particularly proud of it but it was something he did very well. Most of the time.

  What he hadn’t factored into the equation was his personal reaction to Raine. Energy flooded through him, heating his blood and triggering an unfamiliar anticipation. He couldn’t look away from her fascinating eyes, didn’t want to look away. Her voice, soft and vibrant, was a siren’s call to his senses. He could feel the power in her. It drew him as surely as her scent and the subtle challenge that she radiated.

  He’d been waiting all his life to meet a woman who could do this to him. That, his level-ten mirror talent intuition warned him, made her potentially the most dangerous woman he had ever met. And the most alluring.

  “You’re from the Arcane Society,” she said. It was not a question.

  “I’m a member of the Society,” he agreed. “Just as your parents and your aunt were. So are you, for that matter.”

  “No.”

  He held up the envelope. “According to your file, your parents registered you at birth.”

  “My mother is dead and the Society expelled my father.”

  “True. But no one forced you or your aunt out of the community.”

  Her dark brows rose above the black frames of her glasses. “That’s something of a technicality, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, but it’s a big one. After your father’s death it was your aunt’s choice to keep you and herself away from the heritage that belonged to both of you.” He moved the file in his hand ever so slightly, just enough to draw her attention back to it. “Well? Do you want answers, Raine Tallentyre?”

  Her fantastic eyes focused briefly on the envelope he held. “That depends on the price I’ll have to pay to get them.”

  He smiled and mentally rolled the dice, enjoying the rush that came with trying to outmaneuver her.

  “What the hell.” He held out the envelope. “The file is yours, whether you decide to help me or not.”

  She took it, even more wary now. “What happens if I refuse to help you?”

  He shrugged. “Then I lose my bet.”

  She hesitated but he sensed her unwilling curiosity. He was counting on it. With her aunt gone, Raine had been deprived of the last link to the part of her family history that explained why she was different. How could she resist?

  He knew, probably before she did, that he had won. His mirror talent picked up the faint tightening at the corners of her sensitive mouth and the small, almost imperceptible movement of one hand.

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes,” she said, opening the door wider. “If I don’t like what I hear or if I don’t believe you or what I read in this file, you’ll leave.”

  “Deal.”

  He moved through the doorway before she could change her mind. She waved him to one of the chairs on either side of the table.

  The room was larger than an ordinary hotel room. There was a comfortable sitting area and a gas fire that added
warmth and atmosphere. He sat down but kept his jacket on. He didn’t think she was ready to see the gun.

  She took the other chair, crossed her legs and rested both arms on the upholstered sides. She did not offer him tea, but then, there was only one cup on the tray.

  “How much do you know about the Arcane Society?” he asked.

  She raised one shoulder in a small shrug, dismissing the question as though it were of little importance to her. But his talent told him that she was faking it.

  “Very little,” she said. “My aunt rarely talked about the organization. I tried to do some research online but I couldn’t find anything useful.”

  “The Society is online but all of its sites are heavily encrypted.”

  Her mouth curved in disdain. “Just another secret society.”

  “Well, sure. Show me any group that can trace its origins back to the late sixteen hundreds that isn’t secretive. On top of that, the founder was an alchemist.”

  “Sylvester Jones.”

  “Right.” He smiled. “So you do know that much.”

  “My aunt mentioned him.” She paused a beat. “One of your ancestors, I believe?” she added coolly.

  “Right.” He grimaced. “Those old alchemists were notorious for being reclusive, secretive and obsessed. I have to tell you that the Society prides itself on following those traditions.”

  “According to my aunt, Sylvester Jones’s descendants have run the Society ever since it was established.” She drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. “The organization is not what anyone would call democratic.”

  “It’s true that there has been a Jones in the Master’s Chair ever since the Society was established,” he admitted, “but as of the Victorian era there is an elected Governing Council that appoints the Master, who, in turn, answers to the Council, which can replace him. Or her.”

  “If you’ve gone all modern and semi-democratic, why the secretiveness?”

  “There are reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  “Think about it.” He angled his head toward the envelope. “You’re the real thing, a genuine psychic, but according to that file, you’re not exactly sending out weekly press releases and signing up for talk shows.”

  She hesitated and then sank a little deeper into the depths of her chair. “Okay, I take your point.”

  “The Society was established and continues to exist for two primary reasons: to conduct research into the paranormal and to provide a community and a refuge for people who possess paranormal talents.”

  She stilled. “Refuge?”

  “As a member of the Society you are automatically connected to other people like yourself, people with real psychic talents, not quacks and charlatans. You meet people who understand what it means to have additional senses.” He smiled again, just a little. “Within the Society, being psychic is, for the most part, considered normal.”

  “What a concept,” she said without inflection.

  “Over the centuries the public’s reaction to anything that smacks of the paranormal has varied from regarding it as witchcraft or magic to viewing the entire subject as sheer fantasy. In the middle you get all the gullible types who fall for fake gurus, mediums and fortune-tellers. Nowhere outside the Society is the paranormal considered a legitimate field of scientific study, and nowhere outside the Society are individuals with psychic talents considered normal.”

  “Yes, I did sort of figure that out on my own,” she said drily.

  “It’s true some police departments and desperate families hire psychics when they run out of leads on tough cases. But that doesn’t alter the fact that mainstream society thinks that folks who claim to have psychic talents are all gurus, frauds or sadly deluded.”

  Her smile was too bright and too brittle. “In other words, we’re creepy.”

  He’d touched a nerve.

  “I’m guessing that’s how some people described your aunt?” he asked, probing gently.

  “It’s how someone described me.”

  “Someone you trusted?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “I’ll level with you. Even within the Society, people like you—people who hear voices—are considered to be pushing the envelope.”

  “I see.”

  “Try not to take it personally. Thing is, people with especially strong psychic abilities of any kind tend to make other people nervous.”

  “Including other people who have similar talents?”

  “Yes. But I can guarantee you it’s a hell of a lot better inside the Society than on the outside.” He looked at the envelope. “According to that file, you’ve been assisting a detective named Bradley Mitchell in the Oriana Police Department for the past year and a half. You’ve provided information that allowed him to solve a string of cold cases and a recent kidnapping.”

  She tensed. “You know about my work with Bradley?”

  “By all accounts, Detective Mitchell has become a rock star in the department, thanks to you. There is speculation that he will take over the department when the current chief steps down.”

  “Your file is very complete.” She was clearly unhappy. “My name is never mentioned in any of Bradley’s reports.”

  “I’m aware that you’ve taken great care to keep a low profile. Mitchell handles the media.”

  She rallied, brisk and certain of herself again. “That’s the way I wanted it.”

  “Because you didn’t care to be treated like some scam artist or a fraud or have people think that you were crazy like your aunt?”

  For a couple of seconds she looked as if she might throw him out but then she gave him a brief, dazzling smile that did not touch her beautiful eyes.

  “Those seemed like good reasons at the time,” she said.

  “They were excellent reasons,” he agreed.

  “You really do know a lot about me, don’t you?” She stopped smiling abruptly and glanced at the envelope on the table. “Has the Arcane Society been spying on me and my aunt all these years?”

  “No. To tell you the truth, you both fell off the Society’s radar screen after your father was killed.”

  “Then how come you know so much about my current history?”

  “What I know was put together over the past twenty-four hours. The agency I represent is very good at gathering information in a hurry. But I didn’t have to read your file to guess how you would feel about being paraded around in front of the media as a police department psychic.”

  “No?” Her chin came up a little. “Why is that?”

  “Because I would feel the same way.”

  She did not look impressed. “Is that so?”

  “Given what you’ve been doing for the Oriana PD for the past eighteen months, I’m assuming you’ve got your aunt’s talent or something close to it. You hear voices in your head, right?”

  She went very still.

  “Relax,” he said. “I know where you’re coming from. I see visions.”

  Seven

  She was so stunned by his admission that it took her a few heartbeats to find her voice.

  “Is that your idea of a joke?” she asked finally.

  “No joke.” He watched her with his striking, enigmatic eyes. “The ability kicked in full force when I was in my late teens. Everyone expected me to be another para-hunter like most of the other males in my family.”

  “What’s a para-hunter?”

  “It’s a kind of psychic talent that jacks up an individual’s natural ability to hunt. Hunters have preternaturally fast reflexes and the ability to detect the psychic spore left by violence. In addition, they can also see well in the dark.”

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What do they like to hunt? Elephants? Moose? Snipe?”

  He smiled. “Maybe, in ancient times, when the ability to hunt big game animals had a strong survival value. These days they tend to prefer to hunt their own kind. More of a challenge, I guess.”

  Shock reverberated through her. �
�They hunt people?”

  “Calm down. Most of the hunters I know work in law enforcement.” He paused a beat. “Although I have to admit that some go bad. None that I am aware of in the Jones family, however.”

  “I see.” She glanced at the door, wondering if she should make a run for it.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “I just told you, I’m not a para-hunter.”

  She hesitated, annoyed. “Do you read minds, too?”

  “No. The experts say that’s impossible.”

  “What, exactly, are you?”

  “Technically, I’m what’s known within the Society as a level-ten mirror talent.”

  “What in the world is that?” she demanded.

  “The best the experts can determine is that it’s a rare type of psychometry.”

  “The ability to sense things by touch.”

  “Right. Your clairaudience is another form.”

  “Why do they call you a mirror talent?”

  He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and steepled his fingers. He had the air of an academic settling into a fireside lecture. “Ever heard of mirror intuition?”

  She reflected briefly. “It’s what provides people with social cues, isn’t it? If we see someone frown or smile we understand intuitively what’s going on. We don’t have to stop and analyze the expression.”

  “Right. And if we see someone pick up a knife we can tell pretty fast whether the person intends to cut his steak with it or try to slit someone’s throat.”

  “I read an article about the phenomenon,” she said. “The theory is that it has something to do with special neurons in the brain. They allow us to mentally mirror the actions of others and make instant judgments. It’s a bone-deep survival mechanism.”

  He tapped his fingers together once. “No one knows for sure how our mirror intuition systems work but one thing is certain, almost everyone has the ability to some degree. In fact, we take it for granted until we meet up with someone who doesn’t exhibit the talent, a person with autism or a mental illness like schizophrenia, for example.”

  “You’re telling me that you have a paranormal version of that ability?”