Sizzle and Burn

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  The weird part was that his heightened psychic energy was stirring all her senses, too. Anticipation and an excitement raced through her.

  She leaned closer. “What are you going to do now?”

  “What Quinn did after he had three beers. I’m going to the restroom.”

  She put her hand on his arm, needing to touch him. “Please be careful. I’ve seen a lot of movies that feature scenes in the men’s room. Things always go badly.”

  “Don’t worry.” He patted her hand reassuringly. “I’ve seen some of those movies, too.”

  Thirty-two

  He chose a path to the restroom that looked like it would have been the logical route for a man who had been seated at the bar. He was running hot now, all his senses, normal and paranormal, aroused and humming with anticipation. The cold thrill of the hunt was upon him.

  He knew Raine had sensed the energy burning through him, knew that it had triggered a response from her own parasenses. The bond between them was growing stronger, whether she realized it or not.

  He went down the dimly lit hall and pushed open the door marked MEN. There were three people inside—two at the urinals, one in a stall. He walked across the small, tiled room, trying not to look like some kind of pervert while he searched for traces of old violence.

  The problem wasn’t the lack of residual psychic energy. It was a typical restroom and it had seen its share of dramatic human moments. Jacked up like this, the visions were disorienting but, for the most part, faint and unfocused. He detected the dull miasma left by years of hastily staged sexual encounters, illicit drug use, violent, stomach-churning illness and rage.

  The last caught his attention. The violent anger was startlingly new, maybe from tonight. It emanated from one of the sinks. He washed his hands while he concentrated on it for a few seconds. The visions were those of a man who had just learned that his wife was sleeping with another man. He hoped the poor bastard had gotten himself back under control before he returned to the table.

  As he had expected, the door handle gave off so many layers of static that it was impossible to sort them out. Door handles collected psychic energy like sponges.

  By the time he had concluded his brief survey the two men at the urinals were giving him uneasy looks. He let himself back out into the hall.

  Well, it had been a long shot, he reminded himself.

  He continued along the hall to the emergency exit door. It was an obvious way out of the building for someone bent on evading a bar tab.

  The door was not alarmed. He tested it cautiously with one hand and picked up only the usual door handle mush.

  He went out into the alley. The door closed heavily behind him. He stood for a moment, absorbing impressions across the spectrum. The crisp night air carried the scent of garbage from a large, commercial-sized steel container. There was a second bin marked GLASS ONLY. It reeked of stale wine and beer. A couple of rats studied him from beneath the shelter of the garbage container and then scurried away into the night.

  He hadn’t picked up any traces inside the restroom or hallway so searching the alley was probably a waste of time. Nevertheless, he started walking slowly toward the far end.

  Thirty-three

  Raine checked her watch for the fourth or fifth time. The weak glow of the table candle revealed that only another minute had passed. Not that much time, in the grand scheme of things. How long could it take to search a restroom?

  Almost immediately after Zack had disappeared in the direction of the men’s room her own edgy excitement had given way to an ominous sensation. What she was feeling now was disconcertingly similar to what she had experienced the night before at about the time Zack encountered the killer in the motel breezeway. She didn’t like it but she was not sure what she could do about it except go down the hall and knock on the door to the men’s room.

  Not a bad idea, come to think of it.

  If they both disappeared from the table, the waiter would probably assume they had left for good. Zack had paid for the drinks when they arrived, so the bill was taken care of but he hadn’t tipped because they had intended to buy another round.

  She opened her small purse to search for some tip money. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted a little as though stirred by an invisible, ice-cold draft. Goose bumps crawled up her arms.

  She was aware of two things simultaneously. The first was that someone very dangerous had just walked past the booth where she sat alone. She could feel not only the presence of the man directly behind her, but his malevolent intent, as well.

  The second thing she knew with unshakable certainty was that the man’s malevolence was directed at Zack.

  Zack was in trouble. She knew it as surely as she knew she heard voices.

  She forced herself to remove some money from her wallet in what she hoped was a calm, unhurried manner. Her instincts were screaming now. It was all she could do to appear calm.

  She put the cash on the table. Only then did she allow herself to turn slightly in the seat, as though searching for the waiter.

  She was just in time to see a figure go into the shadowy hall that led to the restrooms. Something about the purposeful way he moved told her he was the one who had set her inner alarm bells clanging.

  The man vanished into the restroom hallway.

  She snapped her purse closed, slid out of the booth and hurried toward the restroom. She reached the hall just in time to see the dark figure pause briefly beneath the emergency exit sign that marked a rear door.

  In the eerie glow of the sign she saw him jerk a ski mask out of his pocket and pull it down over his face. Then he reached for the door handle with one hand. With his other hand, he drew a knife out of a concealed sheath.

  Thirty-four

  The terrible visions slammed through him without warning when he touched the corner of the steel garbage container. The images were searing and fairly fresh, no more than a month old.

  Suddenly he knew what had happened in this alley. He saw it all from Lawrence Quinn’s perspective.

  …A dark figure approaching swiftly out of the shadows. Confusion and then skyrocketing terror. The sickening knowledge that he had been a fool to believe them. A death’s head loomed. Eyes like bottomless black holes…

  …Then there was an unearthly cold seeping into him. He was on the ground. The death’s head reached down, leaning over him, snatching something from his numb fingers…

  The door to the nightclub opened. He jerked his hand away from the metal, turning quickly. The visions evaporated the instant he was no longer in contact with the metal but he could still feel the emotional punch of a man who knew he was facing his own imminent, violent death.

  Raine plunged out of the doorway, moving incredibly fast in her fragile high heels and tight black dress. She came straight at him, her small clutch purse extended in her right hand. She did not speak as she closed the distance between them in long, lethal strides.

  Not Raine, his para-instincts screamed. Everything was wrong.

  But the disconnect between the physical appearance of the attacker and what his senses were telling him created an instant of jangled chaos in his mind, slowing his reaction speed.

  A second figure flew out of the doorway.

  “Look out,” Raine shouted. “He’s got a knife.”

  The real Raine.

  She threw her purse at the attacker. It bounced off the fake Raine’s back and landed on the pavement. The blow couldn’t have done any real damage but it caused the phony Raine to glance back over a shoulder for a split second.

  The distraction must have interfered with his control because for a couple of heartbeats the fake Raine wavered and disappeared. A familiar-looking figure in a black ski mask appeared.

  Ski Mask dismissed the real Raine as a source of danger in the blink of an eye but that gave Zack time to get his gun out of his shoulder holster.

  It was impossible to line up a clear shot, however. The hunter-illusionist was moving
too fast. In addition, Raine was behind him. If the bullet missed its target, which it probably would under the circumstances, there was a chance it might strike her.

  Ski Mask morphed back into Raine. He was only a couple of feet away now. Zack intuitively knew what he was going to do next and managed, just barely, to evade the lunge.

  He reeled back behind the end of the steel container marked GLASS, reached inside and grabbed the first empty bottle he touched. Then he crouched low.

  The fake Raine rounded the corner, black clutch purse extended. Too late the apparition realized that his target was no longer on his feet. He tried to adjust, slashing downward with the purse. The clutch purse changed into a knife in mid-thrust. Ski Mask was back but the transformation disturbed his balance for a second or two.

  Zack seized the opening, going in low. He slashed the bottle against a black-clad leg. The blow shattered the glass. He was already rolling out of range. He didn’t have a chance to see if he had drawn blood because Ski Mask abruptly danced back out of reach. He was switching back and forth between the fake Raine and his ski mask persona so quickly now that Zack couldn’t focus long enough to get a clean shot.

  It was obvious that the attacker had completely lost control.

  “No,” Ski Mask/Raine wailed in a high, keening shriek of panic and rage.

  He whirled. Still clutching his knife/purse, he fled toward the mouth of the alley.

  Zack pounded after him, going straight past a stricken Raine. But it was hopeless. There was no way he could catch the fleeing man. Ski Mask might have lost control of the psychically induced illusion, but he still had a hunter’s speed.

  The running figure raced out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. He turned left and vanished from sight, footsteps echoing in the night.

  A heavy engine roared. Tires shrieked.

  The getaway car was waiting for him.

  But this time there was a sickening thud and then the sound of a highly revved engine.

  Zack hesitated a few seconds at the mouth of the alley. There was no point running straight into an ambush. But when he risked a quick look around the building, there was no sign of the getaway car.

  All he could see was the body sprawled on the pavement in the intersection.

  Thirty-five

  The cops are calling it hit-and-run,” Zack said into the phone. “He was dead when I got to him. No ID. No one saw the car.”

  “What about you?” Fallon asked.

  “I didn’t see it, either.” He paced Raine’s serene living room, trying to work off some of the excess energy that was still pumping through him. Batman and Robin trotted at his heels, trying to figure out if this was a new game. “But it sounded like the same SUV that was waiting for him in the motel parking lot last night.”

  “Are the police paying any attention to you and Raine?”

  “Not at this stage. They read it as an attempted robbery gone bad. I told them I went to the restroom and then stepped outside to get some fresh air. The guy surprised me. Had a knife. He took off running when Raine came outside to see what was going on.”

  “All true,” Fallon said.

  He sounded satisfied. Everyone knew the Number One Rule. Stick to the truth as much as possible but don’t try to explain the Arcane Society and its problems with Nightshade to the authorities.

  On the whole, it was a good rule, Zack thought. There was just no way a conversation about the Society and Nightshade would go well with a cop. See, Officer, I work for a psychic detective agency that’s on retainer to an organization devoted to paranormal research, and there’s this other crowd that stole a secret alchemical formula that can enhance a person’s psychic powers…

  Yeah, right.

  Once in a while the Arcane Society found itself in the pages of the tabloids right next to breaking news about new appearances by Elvis and innocent women getting impregnated by strange creatures from other planets. That was bad enough, as far as Fallon was concerned. He had no intention of compounding the problem by allowing J&J to become a joke among law enforcement agencies.

  “The cops are, of course, very interested in the car that hit the robber,” Zack said.

  “Even if they find it, I doubt it will lead them anywhere. Whoever took out Ski Mask will make sure of that. The way I see this, his handler inside Nightshade gave him one more chance to remove you from the equation. When he failed, they had a Plan B ready, just for him.”

  “Any theories on what was going on with all that morphing?”

  “Looks like he may have possessed two high-grade talents,” Fallon said. “But he couldn’t control them both.”

  Raine walked in from the kitchen, carrying a bamboo tray that held a delicate pot and two fragile-looking cups. She had changed out of the sexy black dress into a white spa robe. Slippers had replaced the stiletto heels. Her hair was still up in a sultry twist but several silky tendrils had come loose during the excitement in the alley. They dangled around her ears and down the nape of her neck in an incredibly sexy way. Zack’s body, still abuzz with leftover adrenaline, reacted immediately.

  “I thought the appearance of multiple high-level talents in any one individual was supposed to be impossible,” Zack said, unable to take his eyes off Raine. “The experts claim that one talent always becomes dominant.”

  “Like everything else, there’s an exception to the rule,” Fallon growled. “The historical record indicates that there have been a few cases in which certain individuals displayed strong levels of more than one type of talent. But yes, the phenomenon is extremely rare. According to the experts, there is a logical explanation for why one talent is almost always dominant.”

  “Something to do with overstimulation of the brain, right?”

  “The brain is designed to process a vast amount of incoming data supplied by all the senses. It is also engineered to tune out unimportant or unnecessary information coming in from those senses. We call it the ability to focus. But if that ability is overridden, the brain can short-circuit, for want of a better term.”

  “Information overload.”

  “You yourself know that it’s hard enough to handle the stimuli provided by a level-ten psychic sensitivity,” Fallon said. “Takes a lot of willpower and self-control. Just imagine what it would be like to deal with two equally powerful talents.”

  “The guy in the ski mask was definitely losing control. It was worse tonight than last night. He was blinking on and off like a bad neon sign.”

  “I checked out every reference I could find,” Fallon said. “In each confirmed instance, and admittedly there were only a handful, the double-talents died at an early age. Probably nature’s way of ensuring that those folks don’t become super predators who, in turn, breed more super predators.”

  “If you’re right, what are the odds that Nightshade came up with one of those extremely rare multitaskers who didn’t die young?”

  “Slim to nothing,” Fallon said. “My gut tells me that Nightshade didn’t find a double-talent; they created one using some new variation of the formula.”

  “Makes sense. But if they went to all that trouble to produce one, why destroy such an expensive tool?”

  “Obviously because he proved unreliable,” Fallon said. “He went up against you twice and failed both times. Nightshade seems to be a very Darwinian organization. Only the strong and the successful survive and advance to the higher ranks.”

  “Sure hope they don’t have a whole bunch of high-level double-talents lined up to fill that guy’s shoes.”

  “Not likely.” Fallon sounded very certain. “Cost issues aside, the analysts assure me that, statistically speaking, there are very, very few people who possess the sort of parapsych profile that could be chemically stimulated to create a functioning double-talent.”

  “Statistics wasn’t my favorite subject. Too many ways they can be manipulated.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Fallon said, dourly cheerful. “You’re obviously making progress wi
th the assignment. At least we now know that Lawrence Quinn is dead and that the double-talent you encountered tonight is probably the one who killed him.”

  “We also know that Nightshade stole something from Quinn before taking him out. His computer, I think. The bartender at the club said he had one with him.”

  “Probably contained his research notes or whatever information he intended to sell to Nightshade,” Fallon mused. “But something must have gone wrong. The folks who arranged to kill Quinn and steal the computer didn’t get whatever it was they expected to find so they’re back in Oriana. And Raine Tallentyre is the only lead we’ve got. Whatever you do, don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Zack heard a click and realized he was holding a handful of dead air. He clipped the phone back on his belt, stopped pacing and looked at Raine. She was seated on the sofa, pouring tea with a sensual grace that made the breath catch heavily in his chest. Everything deep inside went tight and hard.

  Get a grip, Jones. It’s just the aftermath. You’ve been here before and survived.

  Raine set the pot down on the tray and looked at him with a shadowed expression. “What did Fallon have to say?”

  He forced himself to concentrate and managed to give her a quick summary of Fallon’s comments.

  The cats, having concluded that the pacing game was over, wandered over to the sofa and hopped up onto the cushions on either side of Raine.

  Zack shoved his fingers through his hair, trying to concentrate. “One good thing. Fallon doesn’t think we need to be worried about another double-talent hanging around the vicinity of Oriana.”

  Raine used both hands to raise the tiny cup to her lips. “What about the person who just murdered the one we did have?”

  “Him, we probably should worry about.” He realized he was staring at her mouth. Focus, Jones. He started moving again, prowling the room. “But maybe not for a while.”