Sizzle and Burn (3 page)

At various points in Elaine’s life her instructors, teachers and colleagues had labeled her “gifted.” Most of them had probably never even had a clue how right they were, Zack thought. What she had was a psychic talent for finding and identifying genuine antiquities of any kind. No one could slip a fake past her, whether it was a Renaissance painting or a piece of Roman glass.

When she had left the university world to accept a position with a museum, most of her colleagues expected her to end up at the head of one of the many prestigious institutions that had made jaw-dropping offers.

Instead, she became the director of the Arcane Society’s museum at the West Coast headquarters of the Arcane Society, USA. The museum was one of four the Society operated, three in the United States and one, the original Arcane House, in the United Kingdom.

The Society’s museums were little known and mostly ignored by the mainstream world of archaeology and academic research. The Society liked things that way. Its highly specialized museums collected and studied artifacts and relics that were associated with the paranormal. They were not open to the public.

Elaine peered up at him. “Well?”

“It’s old.” Zack turned back to the dagger. “Lot of static on it. I can feel it from here.”

“I know it’s old.” She made a soft, impatient sound. “I didn’t buy it yesterday at Wal-Mart. It cost me a huge chunk of the museum’s annual budget. Trust me, I wouldn’t have authorized the acquisition if I wasn’t certain that it was second century,
A.D
. That’s not what I’m asking.”

“I’ll have to handle it to know for sure. No gloves.”

Her mouth pursed at that. Elaine did not like anyone to handle any of the objects in the collection with ungloved hands. But she knew his requirements. If she wanted him to verify her theory about the dagger, she would have to let him have direct physical contact.

Without a word, Elaine punched in a code that opened the case.

Zack readied himself for the shock he knew was coming and deliberately jacked up his psychic senses. He reached down and closed his hand around the jeweled hilt of the dagger.

The current of psychic energy that still clung to the blade even after so many centuries was faint but it had been laid down in blood and it was still strong enough to sear his senses. He locked his teeth together and closed his eyes. Not that shutting his eyes had any effect on the ghostly images that flashed through his mind.

The scenes, layers of them in this instance because the dagger had been used many times for similar purposes, came to him in the hues of nightmares. He was never able to explain the colors of the paranormal visions. They had no equivalent in the normal world.

…
He thrilled to the act of driving the dagger downward, savoring the anticipation of how it would feel when it cut into human flesh, sensed the unholy lust and exultation that came with the killing blow, knew the terror of the victim
…

He dimmed his psychic senses swiftly and dropped the dagger back into the case.

“Hey,” Elaine yelped, outraged. “Careful with that thing.”

“Sorry.” He gave the hand he had used to grip the blade a little shake as if the small action could rid him of the remnants of the grim visions. He knew better. Luckily the dagger was very, very old.

Elaine raised her brows. “Tell me.”

“It was definitely used to kill people, not animals,” he said. Calling on years of practice and sheer willpower, he managed to repress the visions. It was a temporary fix. They would be back, probably in his dreams that night. “A human-sacrifice scenario.”

“You’re sure it was a sacrifice, not just the killing of an enemy or a routine murder?”

He looked at her. “Routine murder?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“The energy on the hilt was tinged with that special rush of sanctimonious power that goes with a blood sacrifice. The bastard liked his work and he got off on it. There’s a reason they call it bloodlust, Elaine.”

She remained skeptical but there was a sparkle in her eye that could only be described as a form of lust.

Archaeologists
, he thought.
Gotta love ’em
.

“An execution, perhaps?” she suggested.

“No. Ritual sacrifice. There was an altar, and the killer felt he had a license to kill.”

Elaine relaxed, smiling with intense satisfaction.

“I was right,” she said, all but rubbing her hands together with glee. “This is the dagger used by the priests of the cult of Brackon.”

He had never understood how collectors and curators could get so excited about objects and devices designed to kill and maim. But then, they didn’t have to deal with the psychic visions left behind on those objects and devices.

“What’s so special about that dagger?” he asked.

Elaine chuckled. “The director of the Sedona branch of the museum has been after it for years. He needs it to complete his collection of Brackon cult artifacts.”

“A little friendly competition between curators?”

“Not so friendly.” Elaine lowered the glass lid and relocked the case. “Milo has an Egyptian ring that I want very badly. I’ve begged him for years to consider a trade. He has always refused. But now I’ve got a bargaining chip. He’ll have to deal on my terms.”

“Got it.” He surveyed the cases in the gallery. “You’ve built this into a fine museum, Elaine. I’m no archaeologist but I’ve spent enough time consulting in all four of the Society’s museums to know that this is a world-class collection.”

She laughed. “I am living proof that an obsessive personality and a keen sense of professional rivalry are the essential traits of a successful curator.”

“Probably useful traits in any profession.” He’d been on the obsessed path himself, most of his life. Until Jenna.

Elaine fixed him with a speculative look. He knew what was coming and readied his exit strategy. He liked Elaine and admired her professional skills. But she was a friend of the family and the family had been applying a lot of pressure lately.

On the surface, the invitation was smooth enough.

“Do you have time for a cup of coffee before you leave for the airport?” she asked.

“I was planning to spend a couple of hours in the museum library,” he hedged.

“That was your excuse last time.”

He considered his options and didn’t like any of them. Elaine was a good client and a very smart woman. He liked the company of smart women. If she stuck to business, he wouldn’t mind having coffee with her. It wasn’t as if there was any great rush to return to his home in the Northern California wine country. There was no one waiting for him.

For the most part he was okay with his new existence as a duo-job workaholic. The problem was that family and friends were becoming increasingly aggressive, pushing him to resume what they considered his destined career path. He knew damn well that they weren’t applying pressure just because they were concerned about him, although that was part of it. The reality was that they had an agenda, and that agenda no longer coincided with his own.

He glanced at his watch. “My flight leaves at five-thirty. That gives me some time.”

“Your enthusiasm is underwhelming.”

He felt himself redden. “I’ve been a little distracted lately.”

“By what?”

“Work.”

“Ah, yes, the all-purpose excuse.” She lightly patted his arm. “And there’s no denying that it is excellent therapy after one has suffered a loss like yours. But it has been almost a year now, Zack. Time to move on.”

He said nothing.

They walked toward the far end of the gallery. Moving down the aisle between the glass cases was like walking a gauntlet. The combined psychic energy buzz given off by the artifacts stirred his senses in an unpleasant way. He knew Elaine felt something, too, but she seemed to thrive on the sensation.

He had to exert a lot of raw willpower to keep the psychic side of his nature suppressed. He could never dampen it entirely; no level-ten sensitive was capable of shutting off his or her paranormal senses altogether. It would have been the equivalent of deliberately going deaf or losing his sense of taste. But it was possible to minimize one’s parasenses.

“What are you working on?” Elaine asked.

“At the moment I’m finishing a paper for the
Journal
.”

Among the curators and consultants associated with the Arcane Society’s museums there was only one journal,
The Journal of Paranormal and Psychical Research
. Like the Society’s museums, neither the print nor the online edition was available to the general public.

“I feel like a detective trying to interrogate a suspect who is waiting for his lawyer to arrive,” Elaine said drily. “But I will persevere. What’s the topic of this paper you’re finishing?”

“The Tarasov camera.”

She tilted her head slightly to look at him, her attention caught. “Never heard of it.”

“According to the records, it was acquired in the 1950s during the Cold War. It was discovered in a Russian lab and brought back to the States by a member of the Society.”

“Discovered?” she repeated, amused.

He smiled faintly. “A polite euphemism for stolen. That was back in the days when the former USSR was doing a lot of paranormal research and experimentation. Someone inside the CIA got nervous and wanted to find out what was going on. J&J was quietly asked to see if it could get an agent inside one of the Russian labs.”

There was no need to explain what J&J stood for. Every member of the Arcane Society was aware that Jones & Jones was the Society’s very private, very low-profile psychic investigation firm.

“J&J was successful, I take it?” Elaine said.

“The agent managed to get the camera out of the country. Brought it back and turned it over to the CIA. Their technicians examined it but concluded that it was bogus. They couldn’t make it work.”

“Why not?”

“Evidently it requires an operator who possesses a unique type of psychic talent. The Society wound up with the camera after the CIA decided it was a fraud. Our techs weren’t able to make it function, either, so it went into a vault. That’s where it’s been sitting all these years.”

“What made the camera unusual?” Elaine asked.

“The Tarasov camera was supposed to be able to photograph human auras.”

“Nonsense.” Elaine gave a disdainful sniff. “Human auras have never been successfully photographed, not even by the experts in the Society’s labs. Something to do with the location of aura energy on the spectrum, I think. Auras can be measured and analyzed in oblique ways and some people can see them naturally, but you can’t take pictures of them. The technology just isn’t available yet.”

“It gets better,” Zack said. “According to the notes of the agent who brought the camera out from behind the Iron Curtain, the Russian researchers believed that a unique type of psychic photographer could not only take pictures of auras, he could use the camera to disrupt them in ways that would cause severe psychic trauma or death.”

Elaine frowned. “In other words, it was meant to be some sort of psychic weapon?”

“Yes.”

“But the experts say that no modern technology can interface successfully with human psychic energy. That’s why no one has ever been able to build a machine or a weapon that can be activated by paranormal powers or one that can produce that kind of energy.”

“True.”

“In other words, the camera really is a fraud?” She sighed. “That’s a relief. The world is already armed to the teeth. The last thing we want to do is introduce a new psychic technology designed to kill people.”

“Uh-huh.”

She beetled her brows at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I was able to determine that the Tarasov camera had been used to kill at least once, possibly twice. The vibes from the first murder were murky, though.”

Elaine’s eyes widened a little. “In other words, the Russians had at least one sensitive who could operate the camera?”

“Looks like it.”

She moved one hand in a small arc. “How is that possible?”

“The J&J agent speculated in his private notes that the Russian operator was probably a one-of-a-kind exotic. Some type of unusual level-ten talent that has never been classified by the Society.”

Exotic
was the Society’s slang for those endowed with rare, extremely high-level psychic talents. It was not, generally speaking, a complimentary term. The truth was, people with exceptionally strong paranormal abilities often made other members of the Society uneasy. In fact, it was not uncommon for folks outside the Society—people who scoffed at the very idea of the paranormal—to find themselves unaccountably nervous or wary when they were in the presence of an individual endowed with powerful parasensitive abilities.

Power of any kind, including psychic power, was a form of energy. Most people, whether they were aware of it or not—whether they even wanted to acknowledge it or not—were capable of sensing it when there was a lot of it in the room.

“Wonder what happened to the exotic who could operate the camera,” Elaine mused.

“She’s dead.”

Elaine gave him a quick, startled look. “Killed by the Jones & Jones agent who appropriated the camera?”

“Yes. It was close. She almost took him out first with the damned thing.”

“Fascinating. Which one of the Society’s museums got the device?”

“It’s not in any of the museums. It’s in the Jones family vault.”

Elaine glowered. “I should have known. No offense, Zack, but your family’s penchant for keeping secrets is extremely annoying to those of us who are in the business of encouraging research. That camera, if it has any historical significance at all, should be in the collection of one of the Society’s museums.”

“Hey, give me some credit here. I persuaded my grandfather to let me study the camera and write up the results for the
Journal
, didn’t I? That was a major accomplishment. You know how he is when it comes to the family’s and the Society’s secrets.”

“Bancroft Jones spent far too much time in the intelligence world before he accepted the Master’s Chair, if you ask me,” Elaine said, grimly disapproving. “If he had his way, he’d probably classify the guest list for the annual Spring Ball as
Top Secret, Council Eyes Only
.”