Dream Eyes

other things. The code is not an easy one to remember. That’s why I wrote it down.” Gwen frowned. “Are you thinking that the killer was after the code to this lab the night he murdered Evelyn?”
    “Maybe, but murder seems a little over-the-top if that’s all he wanted. It would be easier to break the code on this door or take a crowbar to one of the windows. Those metal shutters are designed to keep out light and the average burglar, but they’re not armor plate.”
    “True.”
    Gwen opened the door. Judson looked into a cavernous, echoing space filled with deep shadows and the kind of heat that was the hallmark of paranormal energy.
    Heavy currents of psi swirled and seethed inside the lodge, much of it similar to the kind that circulated in Sam’s crystal vault and in the company’s R&D facility. The atmosphere got downright electric when a lot of paranormal artifacts, crystals or other psi-infused objects were housed in a confined space.
    But beneath the hot energy, he sensed something else—the unmistakable miasma of death and violence.
    “You were right,” he said, “The people who died here didn’t die of natural causes.”
    “I can still feel it, too,” Gwen said.
    She pressed a glowing switch on a wall panel. A strip of low-level floor lights winked on, illuminating a small area around their feet. The rest of the lab remained drenched in deep gloom.
    Judson closed the door, shutting off the weak daylight. “No fluorescent overheads?”
    “No,” Gwen said. “There are task lamps at the various workstations, but most of the lab is lit with this kind of strip lighting. It’s all on automatic sensors. Once we pass through a section, the lights will go off behind us.”
    “Ballinger really had a problem with visible light, didn’t she?” he said.
    “Evelyn found almost all light a distraction. Something to do with her talent, I think. She was very sensitive to ultra-light energy.”
    Gwen moved along the concrete floor. Another strip of lights winked on, revealing a few more feet of flooring.
    “The mirror engine is at the back,” she said, leading the way. “It takes up the entire rear wall.”
    He raised his other vision, increasingly intrigued as he followed Gwen through a maze of workbenches, cabinets and display cases. In addition to a vast array of odd tools and machines, there was a large collection of crystals and stones that he knew would fascinate Sam.
    He eased his talent higher, opening himself to the energy-infused atmosphere. There was a lot of ambient psi around, but it was the dark currents of violence that riveted his senses.
    He had recovered from the nightmare in the cave, but Gwen was right—as long as he had his talent, he would be compelled to hunt. She was the only woman he had ever met who got that part of him—got it and was not repelled or unnaturally attracted to it. She simply understood and accepted his nature.
    And she had made it clear last night that she was not looking for a forever commitment any more than he was. By all logic and reason, that made her the perfect woman for him, the woman of his dreams.
    Now, if he could just get her to stop insisting that he needed therapy.
    Gwen came to a halt. “That’s the entrance to the mirror engine.”
    But he had already sensed a heightening in the energy level as they neared the back of the lab. Hot psi cracked and snapped in the atmosphere, raising the fine hair on his neck and arms. His palms prickled.
    “Whatever it is, it’s powerful,” he said. “I’m impressed.”
    “The engine was Evelyn’s greatest creation.” Gwen skirted a workbench. “She told me that originally she had envisioned it as just another small experiment. The first version was about the size of a walk-in shower. But the results were so extraordinary that she kept expanding the surface area dedicated to the mirrors. Eventually the engine grew to the size you see now.”
    The dark mirrored walls that formed the outside of the engine extended halfway to the vaulted ceiling. Judson estimated they were fifteen feet high. There was energy infused into every inch of the thick glass. Flashes of ultra-light appeared and disappeared in the depths of the reflective surfaces. He looked through the entrance and saw a hall of mirrors.
    “Evelyn designed the interior in the form of a simple maze,” Gwen said. “The idea was to maximize the mirrored surfaces inside. The result is that there are lots of twists and turns and short