“No,” Sierra said, her tone calm and reassuring. “Your aura shows some indications that you were drugged. Can you describe the man you talked to?”
“I didn’t get a close look at him. You know how dark it is inside the Vault. I’d put him in his midthirties. He was wearing a dark jacket. And a baseball cap. Dark glasses.”
“Dark glasses?” Sierra repeated. “Like those that Mr. Chastain is wearing?”
“Nah. Not the fancy kind. Just regular dark glasses. I think he was trying to hide his eyes so I couldn’t get a good look at him. He had a weird vibe, I can tell you that. It’s one of the reasons I figured him for a collector or a Puppet. They’re all obsessed and paranoid as hell.”
“What about his hair?” Sierra said. “Do you remember the color?”
Matt shrugged. “Light brown, I think. Couldn’t see much of it because of the baseball cap. Sorry, that’s about it.”
“You don’t remember anything else unusual about him?” Sierra prompted. “His shoes?”
“Didn’t notice his shoes. He put me in mind of a professor or a scientist. A doctor, maybe.” Matt stiffened abruptly. “The bastard followed me here. He wasn’t alone.”
“Are you certain?” Sierra asked.
“Positive,” Matt said, growing angrier by the second. “I remember going through the fence and into the apartment house. I heard a noise out in the hall. The next thing I knew, the professor guy was standing in the doorway. He was carrying a briefcase. There were a couple of big men with him. Tattoos-and-steroid types.”
“Muscle?” North asked.
Matt grunted. “Definitely.”
“Can you describe them?” Sierra asked.
“Aside from their size and the tats, not really. It wasn’t like I had a chance to take a photo. One of them had this strange flashlight-shaped artifact. I remember it was transparent. Must have been made of crystal. He aimed it at me and switched it on. There was a beam of light, but it wasn’t normal light. It was like looking into a prism, or maybe a kaleidoscope. Lots of colors. I couldn’t look away. I could feel it closing down my senses but I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Light from the paranormal spectrum,” North said.
“Yeah,” Matt said. He shuddered. “Never seen anything like it. I went down to my knees.”
“What happened next?” Sierra asked.
“The guy in charge, the one who looked like a doctor or a scientist, yelled at the man with the flashlight gun. Told him to shut it off because it wasn’t reliable. Then he took out a syringe and injected something into my arm. Told me I was going to go to sleep and probably wouldn’t wake up. But if something went wrong and I did survive, I wouldn’t remember anything about him or his men or what had happened.”
North held up the steel container so that Matt could see it. “Do you remember this?”
Matt peered at the container. “The doctor handed the briefcase to one of the muscle guys and told him to take that thing out of the case and put it in the cupboard. Then he told the guy to open the lid. Warned him to be careful because it was now set and would explode the next time someone with a lot of talent touched it. You should be careful with that thing. There’s some energy in it. I can sense it. It’s hot enough to be a lab artifact.”
“Yes, it is,” North said.
Matt turned back to Sierra. “That’s it. I don’t remember anything else after that until I woke up out here.”
CHAPTER 13
Sierra opened the door of the SUV and jumped up behind the wheel. North got in on the passenger’s side. They buckled their seat belts while they watched Matt drive away from the construction site.
Time was running out, Sierra thought. They had to keep moving. But North was about to collapse from exhaustion. She did not mention that fact, however. She was pretty sure he would deny it.
“What’s next?” she said instead.
“I’ll call Victor.” North pulled out a cell phone. “Bring him up to date. Then we need to go back to the Vault and see if we can get a lead on the man who met with Harper tonight.”
“Okay. The security people at the Vault should be able to tell us a few things.” Sierra glanced at the metal box that North was holding in both hands. “Do you think that artifact is still dangerous?”
“No, not in its current state. There’s a crystal inside. I don’t know what kind. There’s still plenty of energy in it, but it’s not focused or channeled. It feels like a battery that needs to be recharged or an engine that requires fuel.”
She caught her breath. “Do you know how to recharge it?”
“Maybe. I’ve got a crystal back home that I might be able to use to get this device up and running. But now isn’t the time for experiments. We need to keep moving here in Seattle. Let’s head for the Vault.”
“Right.”
Sierra put the SUV in gear and pulled away from the curb. She drove to the alley entrance of the Vault and handed the keys to Brick.
“We won’t be staying long,” she said. “Just need to ask security about one of the customers who came here tonight.”
“Take your time,” Brick said.
He opened the rear door of the club. Sierra led the way inside. North followed.
* * *
—
Fifteen minutes later they were back in the SUV.
“That was a waste of time,” she said, firing up the engine.
“Not entirely,” North said. “We learned a few things about the guy with the briefcase.”
“Just that he claimed to be a collector who was trying to arrange for a delivery,” Sierra said.
“We also learned that he’s new in town, or at least new at the Vault,” North pointed out. “And we got a name and an address. Raymond Waddell from Portland, Oregon.”
“Twenty bucks says the name and the address are fake.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but it’s something to give to Victor and Lucas. Guys who go to the trouble of paying for fake IDs usually use them more than once. Lucas will run Waddell through the Foundation database. We may get lucky.”
“All right.”
“You and I need to keep moving,” North said.
Sierra decided she’d had enough.
“What you need,” she said evenly, “is sleep.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe a twenty-minute nap.”
“A nap isn’t going to cut it. You’re suffering from severe sleep deprivation, North. The only reason you haven’t collapsed is because you’re pulling on your paranormal senses. You’re strong, so you’ve been getting away with that strategy. But your psychic vibe won’t keep you going much longer.”
“It’s my problem. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been getting by with the naps for a few weeks.”
“You burned a lot of energy tonight protecting us from the light grenade. If you don’t get the rest you need, you’ll drop. That might come at a really awkward moment for both of us.”
“Define ‘awkward.’”
“Say we encounter another light grenade or that flashlight gun that Matt described,” Sierra said. “If anything like that happens again, you won’t have the energy left to protect us.”
North did not respond. He just sat quietly, staring through the windshield. At least he was listening. She decided to keep talking.
“Maybe the lack of sleep was your problem before you became a client,” she said. “But I’m working with you now. That means your problems are now mine. Trust me, if you keep drawing on your senses you’re going to crash.”
“You don’t understand,” North said. “I’m not refusing to sleep. I’m trying to tell you that I can’t sleep. Not for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m not wearing these damned glasses because they are a fashion statement.”
“I see.” She gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breat
h. “What happened to you?”
“We’re in this together, so you deserve to know the facts. I’m going psi-blind. Losing my talent.”
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t have time for the sympathy.”
“I understand. Was there an accident of some kind?”
“No. I started having problems with my talent a few weeks ago. The situation has been deteriorating. The doctors don’t know what’s going on. The assumption is that I may have encountered some unknown radiation on one of my jobs that affected my night vision talent. Whatever the case, the medics are not hopeful.”
“I see. And the glasses?”
North smiled a cold smile. “The glasses are supposed to keep me sane.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I take them off for more than a minute or two I start hallucinating. The lab techs came up with these glasses. They’ve got special crystal lenses that keep me from seeing things that aren’t there. They work, but when I’m wearing them I can’t access what’s left of my vision talent. Soon, that won’t matter, because it’s fading anyway.”
“Will you still have your basic senses? Intuition? Your ability to detect paranormal energy?”
“Maybe. If I’m lucky. Nobody knows. Right now, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a job to do.”
“We’ve got a job to do.” She pulled away from the curb. “And you’re not going to be of much use until you get some sleep.”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Back to my place so you can sleep.”
“I can nap in the car.”
“What’s the point? It’s not like we’ve got any more clues to follow up on at the moment. Phone Las Vegas. Give them the information we just got about the guy with the briefcase, Waddell. Let Arganbright and Lucas Pine do their thing while you sleep.”
For a moment she thought he was going to argue. Instead North took out his phone and called Las Vegas. By the time he was finished she was pulling into the garage of her apartment tower.
She shut down the engine and unclipped her seat belt. Automatically she checked the SUV’s oversized mirrors. No auras flashed in the glass. She started to open her door but a thought made her pause.
“It occurs to me that everything about this situation involves paranormal light, specifically the kind that you can handle,” she said.
“I’ve got my grandfather’s talent,” North said. “My dad has it, too, but he got a slightly different version.”
“No two talents are exactly identical.”
“No, but psychic signatures tend to be passed down through the bloodline.”
“That’s what your father sensed when he picked up that metal rod.”
“Yes. And what I sensed in this light grenade.”
“Hmm.”
North looked at her. The cold garage lights glittered on his mirrored glasses.
“What?” he said.
“Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it occurs to me that the fact that you started losing your talent a few weeks ago, not long before your father picked up that artifact that carries your grandfather’s signature, is one heck of a coincidence. And now, tonight, we nearly got burned by a light grenade that also carries your grandfather’s psychic DNA.”
North sat silently for a time.
“I’m open to conspiracy theories,” he said finally. “Got one?”
“No. Just looking at what appear to be a couple of themes.”
“Paranormal light,” North said, “and Griffin Chastain’s psychic signature.”
“Right.”
“There’s something you probably don’t know about my grandfather. He worked on the Bluestone Project. He was assigned to the Fogg Lake lab. He disappeared shortly after my father was born. There were rumors at the time that he betrayed his country. That he sold secrets to the old Soviet Union. The general assumption was that he either disappeared behind the Iron Curtain or was murdered by the spy who recruited him.”
“What does your family think?”
“We think he was murdered, but not by a Cold War spy. Our theory is his research partner killed him.”
“Why?”
“Because the partner wanted to steal the devices he and Griffin Chastain had developed,” North said. “Devices like this light grenade. And maybe that crystal gun Matt Harper described. I wonder if that was what was used on Dad.”
“Are you telling me your grandfather and his partner were working on paranormal weapons?”
North looked down at the light grenade he cradled in his hands. “Apparently.”
“And now, after all these years, some of those weapons are starting to surface. Who was Griffin Chastain’s research partner?”
“Crocker Rancourt.”
Sierra gripped the steering wheel, startled. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Crocker Rancourt established the Foundation. His son, Stenson Rancourt, took over after Crocker died. My parents told me that Stenson’s son, Harlan, was set to inherit the operation. The Rancourts were like a mob family.”
“Victor Arganbright and Lucas Pine changed all that,” North said mildly.
“So they claim,” Sierra said. She paused. “How long was Crocker in charge?”
“Only a few years,” North said. “He died relatively young. Heart attack. Stenson Rancourt took over after that. He ran it for decades. It was no secret he was grooming Harlan to take his place eventually.”
“Five years ago Stenson and Harlan Rancourt died in an explosion at the old headquarters of the Foundation, right? So there are no Rancourts left.”
North was silent for a long, thoughtful moment. He seemed to be contemplating the concrete wall in front of the SUV.
“What?” Sierra asked.
“There is a rather significant detail about the explosion that killed Stenson and Harlan,” North said. “Only one body was found in the wreckage. Stenson’s.”
“They didn’t find Harlan’s body?” Sierra asked, shocked. “I never heard that.”
“Victor Arganbright and Lucas Pine thought it best to keep the information quiet. They did not want to launch any new conspiracy theories. The Foundation has enough of those circulating at any given moment. Besides, the reality is that for the past five years there has been no evidence that Harlan Rancourt made it out of the blast zone.”
“This is getting creepier by the minute,” Sierra said.
“Want out?”
“That’s not an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because someone tried to murder my friend Matt Harper tonight. Matt was in harm’s way because of me. The would-be killer tried to murder me as well, and one of my clients.”
“Me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I need my clients. They are paying for this car and my apartment.”
“Always nice to know one has a purpose in life.”
She ignored that. “The three of us were intended to die in a blast of paranormal energy that would have left no traces of foul play, no clues that might make the Seattle police launch a homicide investigation.”
“True,” North said.
“Well, I take that sort of thing personally. I’ve got a reputation to protect. For a go-between, reputation is everything. That means we’re in this together. But first you need sleep.”
“A nap.”
“I think I can make sure you get more than a nap.”
“The same way you made Harper remember the man he met at the Vault?”
“Sort of like that, yes.”
“Sort of like that?”
“Well, obviously you would go to sleep, assuming I do my job right. Matt, on the other hand, was wide-awake during the whole process. But with a couple of tweaks I could have made him sl
eep.”
North was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke he sounded thoughtful. Intrigued, maybe. Curious.
“Are you a psychic hypnotist?”
“No. I can use my locket to make someone go to sleep or faint, but that’s about it. In the grand scheme of things it’s a pretty minor talent. I can’t even see auras unless I’ve got a mirror or some other reflective surface handy.”
“You see just the reflections of auras?”
“Yeah. The only real talent I’ve got is the ability to pick up the psychic energy laid down in an object or an artifact. That’s why I thought I might be able to make it in the auction house world. I could tell the real antiques from the fakes and the reproductions. But that job didn’t go well.”
“I read something about it in your file.”
“I’ll bet you did. I’m amazed you came looking for me.”
“Ambrose Jones assured Victor Arganbright that you were the best when it came to tracking artifacts.”
“And that’s what you needed,” Sierra said. “A tracker.”
He glanced at her. “I need your skills and your knowledge of the artifacts market here in the Pacific Northwest.”
“That’s what you’re paying for, and that’s what you’re getting.”
She opened the door and got out of the SUV.
CHAPTER 14
North walked into the apartment and stopped cold at the sight of the Zen-like decor. In spite of the harrowing events of the evening and his uncertainty about the wisdom of letting Sierra experiment with his aura, he almost smiled.
“Let me take a wild guess,” he said. “You’re into the minimalist style.”
The small sofa, reading chair and coffee table were simple and utilitarian. The floors were some sort of high-tech gray laminate that looked like real wood. Everything else was white or gray. It all added up to a look that was about as opposite from the Abyss as it was possible to get. The only items that struck a familiar chord were the mirrors on the walls. There were a lot of them.
“Not really.” Sierra took off her jacket and hung it up in the small coat closet. “But it turns out minimalism happens naturally when you’re on a tight budget.”
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