Sizzle and Burn

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  He went through the rest of the apartment carefully but there was nothing to indicate that Pandora was anything other than what she appeared—a creative young woman with a flair for the offbeat and the dramatic.

  He went out of the apartment, made his way down the three flights of stairs and walked the two blocks to where he had left the rental car.

  Pandora emerged from the back room shortly before noon. “How does pizza sound?”

  Calvin, sprawled in a chair with a cup of coffee, gave her a mockingly earnest look. “Don’t toy with me, woman. You never want to ask me a question like that unless you’re serious.”

  Pandora’s answering laugh was light, almost a giggle, and so unexpected that Raine, standing behind the counter, could only stare at her in disbelief. She had never heard Pandora laugh like that.

  “The restaurant at the end of the block makes great pizza,” Pandora assured Calvin. “I’ll go pick one up.”

  “Oh, man,” Calvin said, big hand covering his heart. “The perfect woman. You with anyone?”

  To Raine’s astonishment, Pandora actually blushed.

  “Not at the moment,” she said lightly.

  “This is definitely my lucky day,” Calvin declared.

  Pandora looked oddly flustered. She turned hastily to Raine. “The usual? Olive and veggie?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Raine said, still trying to get used to the sight of a sparkling-eyed Pandora. “If that’s okay with you, Calvin.”

  “Sure.” Calvin took out a wallet. “Get two. Make sure one of ’em’s extra large.”

  “That’s okay,” Raine said. “Lunch is on the house.”

  “Nah, let’s let J&J pay for it.” Calvin crammed a fistful of cash into Pandora’s hand. “I’ll bill the pizzas as expenses.”

  With a last lilting giggle, Pandora hurried out the door with the money.

  Calvin watched her go with a besotted expression. “I think I’ve just met the girl of my dreams.”

  Raine folded her arms on the counter. “I thought you Arcane Society folks relied on your own in-house matchmakers to find partners.”

  “I like to do my own hunting.” He went back to watching the street in front of the shop. “Besides, arcanematch-dot-com isn’t what you’d call one hundred percent reliable. Just ask Zack about his fiancée.”

  “He told me about Jenna,” she said.

  “No telling what Nightshade might have been able to do if they had succeeded in marrying an operative off to Zack,” Calvin stated.

  “I can see where it would have been a big coup for Nightshade to have an agent married to a member of the Jones family.”

  Calvin snorted softly. “Not just any member of the family, the Number One Jones.”

  She stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

  Calvin glanced at her. Surprise and then amusement dawned on his broad features. “Sorry about that. I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?”

  “When Fallon called me he said something about you having been raised outside the Society. Guess you don’t know much about the politics of the organization.”

  “I’m aware that the Society was founded by a Jones and that the Jones family has always been extremely influential.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. In the last century the Society went through some major changes. Members of the Governing Council are elected now, for example. But one thing hasn’t changed. The head of the organization has always been a Jones, usually a Jones from Zack’s branch of the family tree. Society’s pretty strong on tradition.”

  She nearly collapsed on the counter. “Are you telling me that Zack is slated to be the next Master of the Arcane Society?”

  “The US branch,” Calvin clarified. “The UK has its own Master.”

  “Another Jones?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Good grief. I had no idea.”

  “Zack’s appointment is supposed to be confirmed by the Council anytime now. It gets officially announced at the Society’s annual Spring Ball. Problem is, ever since his fiancée died, Zack’s been telling everyone that he’s decided to opt out of the job. No one’s taking him seriously, though.”

  She frowned. “Zack doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who changes his mind once it’s made up.”

  “True, but in this case folks figure he just needs some time to get past what happened last year.”

  “Don’t know about you, but speaking personally, I can see how finding out that you nearly married a Nightshade operative and then having said operative try to poison you might make you reconsider your goals and objectives in life.”

  “Nah. Zack was born for the job. Sooner or later he’ll realize it.”

  “Would it be the end of the world if he did opt out?”

  Calvin shrugged. “Like they say, no one’s irreplaceable. And lord knows, there are plenty of other Joneses around. Thing is, Zack’s grandfather, the current Master, and the majority of the Council, which includes a lot of intuitives, by the way, feel that Zack is the best guy for the job. There’s a lot of pressure on him.”

  “What makes him so unique? You said yourself there are a lot of Joneses.”

  “He’s the first Jones in a long time who is a level-ten mirror talent.”

  “So what? Why does that make him the best person to take on the Master’s responsibilities?”

  “Mirror talents are so rare they’re the stuff of legend within the Society,” Calvin explained. “The Council and the old man at the top are thrilled with Zack. See, the ability to intuitively second-guess the opposition is just exactly the kind of talent you need in the Master’s Chair when you’re up against some real bad guys. And Nightshade is definitely a world-class collection of bad guys.”

  Forty-eight

  He left the car in the herd of vehicles clustered in a lot that served a small city park and walked a block to a sprawling six-story condominium complex.

  Bradley Mitchell’s home security was stunningly low-end. Then again, maybe hotshot detectives assumed that the bad guys wouldn’t dream of burglarizing a cop’s home. Talk about a state of denial.

  He deactivated the simple alarm system with the same J&J gadget that he had used to open the front door.

  Once inside, he found himself in a one-bedroom apartment decorated in surprisingly good taste. He had been expecting a cluttered, dust-laden bachelor pad filled with cheap rental furniture, a lot of high-tech media equipment and the kind of artwork that was ripped out of girlie magazines.

  The state-of-the-art television and sound system were present but the sofa, chairs and coffee table were comfortable and modern in design—clearly several steps above rental quality. The pictures on the walls were Ansel Adams prints. Maybe the biggest shocker of all was the well-stocked bookcase.

  Okay, so he had been hoping that Mitchell would prove to be a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal with no redeeming traits. He should have known that Raine would never have been attracted to a man who didn’t exhibit some civilized behavior patterns and a degree of intelligence.

  He brushed against the first ghostly images when he took off a glove and touched the bed. The scenes were very faint, little more than gossamer flickers slicing through his mind. His powerful intuition conjured up a vision of two people engaged in heated sex. One of them—the one who left the strongest impression—wasn’t enjoying the act, at least not in a normal, healthy way. For one of the two lovers, sex was a weapon—no, a tool—that had been used to achieve some objective far more vital than a momentary release. Power was the goal.

  He steeled himself against the visions long enough to absorb the few clues they offered and then suppressed them, temporarily at least.

  Moving more quickly now, he pulled the glove back on and went into the kitchen. Disappointment shafted through him when he found no unmarked vials inside the refrigerator but he used the little metal stick to sample a carton of orange juice and the milk, just to make sure.

  He closed the door and stood quietly
in the middle of Mitchell’s neat, tidy kitchen, thinking about things. All his parasenses were yelling at him, telling him that the drug had to be somewhere in the apartment.

  He went back into the living room and stood listening intently. Nothing. Then he went down the hall and opened a closet door. There was a stacked set of apartment-sized appliances inside, a washer and dryer. He finally heard it: the high-pitched whine of a miniature refrigerator, the kind designed for a den.

  The little unit was sitting in the corner, plugged into a wall socket. When he touched the handle, another whispery vision slashed through him, strong enough to penetrate the glove. He opened the door and saw a small, unlabeled vial. There was a trace amount of clear fluid inside.

  Bradley shoved the key into the lock of his front door. He moved into the foyer and looked at the small white control panel on the wall. The security system was off. That wasn’t right. He was sure he’d set it before he left the apartment. The damn thing was broken again. One of these days he would have to get around to replacing it.

  He thumped the panel box a couple of times. The lights didn’t come on. He was about to hit the box again when he sensed a presence behind him.

  He spun around, hand going inside his jacket. But Zack Jones already had his gun out.

  “Guy in your line of work should probably get a better security system,” Zack said.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Zack held up a small glass vial. “You and I need to talk.”

  Forty-nine

  Mayor Joanne Escott parked her Mercedes sports car in a no parking zone in front of Incognito shortly before noon and rushed inside. Calvin did not appear to be paying much attention but Raine was sure she caught a whisper of power. He had jacked up his senses when Joanne flew into the shop, assessing her with his hunter talent.

  Joanne stopped short, removed her dark glasses and gave him a blatantly appraising look.

  “New employee?” she asked, brows rising with unconcealed interest.

  “This is Mr. Harp, a freelance costume designer,” Raine said before Calvin could respond. “He brought in some sketches for me to look at.”

  Joanne’s interest faded immediately. “Oh. Probably gay, then, hmm?”

  Calvin gave her his sunny smile.

  Raine cleared her throat. “Calvin, this is Joanne Escott, our mayor.”

  Calvin inclined his head, gravely polite. “Your Honor.”

  “Do you live here in Oriana?” Joanne asked brightly.

  “No, ma’am. I’m from out of town.”

  “I see.” Assured that Calvin was not a potential voter, Joanne rounded on Raine. “I’ve only got fifteen minutes for my fitting,” she announced, checking her diamond-studded watch. “I have an appointment with my stylist at twelve forty-five. I don’t dare be late. Roger is so temperamental and I absolutely have to get my hair done for the fund-raiser tonight.”

  “Your costume is finished,” Raine said. She held the red velvet curtain aside. “It won’t take long to try it on.”

  Joanne gave Calvin one last regretful glance, and then, with a tiny sigh, she dropped her dark glasses into an oversized purse and followed Raine.

  Calvin rose from his chair in a seemingly leisurely fashion and ambled after them. He lounged just inside the doorway, arms folded.

  Raine brought the Cleopatra gown out from behind a long row of costumes and started to remove the plastic covering.

  “We took the hem up another two inches and tightened the bustier,” she said.

  Joanne watched, pleased, as the finished gown was revealed. “It looks fabulous.”

  She reached into her purse. Raine assumed she was going to take out another pair of glasses. Instead she removed what looked like a milky white jar.

  Power jumped. Calvin moved so quickly, Raine didn’t even realize he had left the doorway until he seized Joanne’s right wrist.

  But Joanne, serene and unruffled, had already dropped the jar. It shattered on the floor. White smoke erupted in a foggy cloud of vapor.

  Hand grenade, Raine thought. We’re all dead.

  Instinctively she dove for the floor behind a rack of costumes, bracing for the inevitable shock wave and the flying bits of metal, knowing there was nothing she could do to shield herself.

  But there was no shock wave. No metal bits pierced her body. There was only the cool, white smoke. It roiled through the room, filling the small space with a familiar herbal scent.

  Joanne stared at the swirling vapors, frowning in baffled confusion.

  “What in the world?” she said.

  She crumpled, unconscious.

  A torrent of voices rose out of the swamp of nightmares inside Raine’s head. Familiar screams of rage, agony and hellish panic smashed across her senses.

  “Get down,” she shouted to Calvin.

  He seemed to comprehend but he did not follow her instructions. Instead, he lashed out with one foot, kicking the smoking canister beneath another rack of costumes. Then he backed toward the door, fumbling for his phone.

  But it was too late. He had been standing virtually on top of the canister when it struck the floor. Raine knew he had taken the worst brunt of the initial explosive blast of smoke. It was amazing he had remained upright as long as he had. There was no telling what effect the drug might have on a powerful hunter whose parasenses had been running wide open when the herb-laced fumes hit them.

  Calvin coughed but managed to punch in a number on his phone.

  “Get out of here,” he roared to Raine. “Back door. Now.”

  Then he went down. The floor shuddered when he landed. He did not move again.

  The phone landed on the floor beside him. She had no way of knowing whether he had managed to punch in 911. Her own phone was in her purse in the other room.

  Breathing shallowly, she yanked her shirt out of the waistband of her pants. The smoke was thickest in the center of the room. She did not dare try to crawl through it to get to the safety of the front part of the shop. The alley door was closer.

  Holding the edge of her shirt over her nose and mouth, she wriggled awkwardly on her belly toward the rear door. The smoke was doing what it was supposed to do according to the laws of physics: rising. The air near the floor smelled strongly of herbs but the vapors were not as thick as they were a few inches higher. She knew she was still taking in a lot of the drug, however. The demonic cacophony in her head was getting steadily worse.

  The costumes around her began to come alive. She was suddenly in the midst of a nightmarish masquerade ball that was taking place in a room filled with funhouse mirrors. Capes and gowns swirled, making her dizzy. Malevolent eyes peered down at her through the empty sockets of the masks. Panic drenched her senses. The urge to leap to her feet and make a run for the door was overpowering.

  It’s the drug. Ignore it. Stay low.

  The voices were changing. Some of them seemed to be coming from the mouths of the masks.

  “…Kill her. Torture her. Burn, witch, burn….”

  She told herself that she was making progress through the ranks of dancing costumes. She could see the rear door but to her smoke-warped vision it kept shifting position. The masks were closing in around her.

  “…Hurt her—hurt her—make her suffer…”

  A bell chimed somewhere in the distance. She dimly recognized it. Pandora returning with the pizza. Thank God.

  Then she heard more voices, not the ghostly cries inside her head.

  “They should all be unconscious by now,” Cassidy Cutler said.

  “We’ve got to be careful.” Niki Plumer sounded worried, as usual. “That smoke is very strong. If it gets to us, we’ll be in trouble.”

  “We’ll give it a couple of minutes to clear. Lock the front door and turn over the closed sign. We’ll take her out the back.”

  Fifty

  She set you up,” Zack said.

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” Bradley reached the end of the living room,
turned and paced back in the reverse direction. “She’s Cassidy Cutler. She’s written four books.” He stopped in front of a bookcase, yanked out a copy of Cruel Visions and showed Zack the back cover. “Her picture is on every damn one of them.”

  “I’m not saying she stole Cutler’s identity, although it’s a possibility. I think it’s more likely that she really is Cassidy Cutler.”

  Bradley shoved the book back into the case. “Why in hell would she want to hurt Raine?”

  Zack chose his words carefully, sticking to the truth as much as possible.

  “My agency believes that she’s involved with a crowd that manufactures and distributes exotic designer drugs,” he said.

  Bradley dropped down onto one of the chairs, eyes narrowing. He knew drug dealing and the crimes associated with the business. “Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument, you’re right. What does she want with Raine?”

  “Raine’s father was a brilliant chemist.”

  “Yeah, I know. She told me.”

  “When Raine was a little girl, Judson Tallentyre worked for my firm’s client, a company that invented and patented a unique psychotropic drug.” Zack slipped easily into the familiar cover story, blending truth and fiction into a seamless whole. “The company abandoned research and shelved the drug after initial trials revealed that it was extremely dangerous. But Tallentyre suspected that the formula would be worth a fortune on the black market. It needed some tweaking, however. There were some extremely serious side effects. He left the company and took the formula with him. He continued to experiment on his own.”

  “Raine said he died when she was little. Traffic accident.”

  “That’s right. The company he worked for investigated and concluded that the secret of the formula died with him. That was the end of the matter until a few weeks ago, when another researcher named Lawrence Quinn suddenly disappeared. The client called in my agency again. We discovered that Quinn had been doing unauthorized research on the same proprietary formula that Judson Tallentyre had stolen. We traced Quinn here to Oriana.”