Fired Up

you use it.”
    She thought about Abe now. He had a talent for locks and related technology. But, then, his branch of the family tree boasted a number of what Arcane liked to call crypto-talents. In previous eras they had been known by less politically correct labels: cat burglars and safe-crackers. Cryptos came in many iterations and permutations, but they all had one thing in common: they had a preternatural ability to get through locked doors, including the cyberspace variety. Like her, Abe made his living in a fairly respectable fashion: he designed computer security systems.
    She pushed the door open, cranked her senses a little higher, and looked into the darkened foyer. She could hear the television clearly now. The fast, sparkling dialogue of a vintage film blared. Fletcher was not a fan of old movies. That meant he probably was asleep on the sofa.
    “Fletcher?”
    There was no response.
    Another wave of jitters swept through her, but she could see no reason for it. Not only was Hector quiet, but her other vision revealed nothing alarming. There were no dangerously hot footsteps on the foyer tiles.
    Hector gazed intently into the small, shadowed entry. He was showing some interest now, but no more than he would have upon entering any new environment, she decided. Of course, given his profound disdain for Fletcher, it would not bother him at all if Fletcher was lying dead or ill on the floor of the living room.
    Dead or ill. Her stomach knotted with acute anxiety.
    Fletcher was in his early thirties. He worked out three times a week, and he watched his diet. But it was not unheard of for an otherwise healthy man to collapse from an undiagnosed heart condition or an aneurism.
    Another wave of unease swept over her. She moved into the foyer and groped for the wall switch. The dim light from the sconce illuminated the entry and a small portion of the living room. She could make out a man’s legs on the floor. The rest of the figure was concealed by the sofa.
    “Oh, my God, Fletcher.”
    She dropped the leash and rushed forward, simultaneously plunging her hand into her pocket for her cell phone.
    She fell to her knees beside Fletcher’s too-still form and fumbled for a pulse. Relief surged through her when she found the slow but steady beat at his throat. The hall light and the glow of the television revealed no signs of blood. She wondered if he’d had a seizure of some kind. She punched in the emergency number on her phone.
    Hector whined. She glanced up and saw that he was standing at the foot of the stairs, gazing intently up into the darkness of the second floor.
    For the first time she got a look at the steps and the banister. She froze at the sight of the violent, black and purple dreamprints glowing ominously in the shadows.
    Hector growled. He did not take his attention off the top of the stairs.
    The 911 operator came on the line. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
    “Intruder in the house,” Chloe whispered.
    “Does he have a gun?”
    “I don’t know. He’s upstairs.”
    “Get out of the house immediately, ma’am.”
    “Someone has been hurt. He’s unconscious.”
    “Get out of the house. Now.”

8
    HE WAS ON THE COMPUTER, TRYING NOT TO THINK ABOUT THE night of doped-up sleep and bad dreams that awaited him when the jolt of awareness struck. It hit like a body blow. He was out of the chair and on his feet, searching for nameless enemies in the shadows of his office before he realized what had happened.
    Take it easy. Just another hallucination. They rarely lasted more than a few minutes at most. But invariably he knew that what he was seeing was not real. It was as if his para-senses short-circuited for a brief period and his brain tried to make sense of the resulting confusion.
    But what was happening to him now was different. It wasn’t a disorienting moment of visual disturbance when the real world blurred and took on the surreal quality of a dreamscape. It wasn’t an auditory hallucination, either. His first thought was that it was yet another aspect of his new talent. But for some reason the deep, intense awareness and alarm he was experiencing seemed focused on Chloe Harper.
    His unease was not irrational, he thought. After all, he had a hell of a lot riding on Chloe. If she could not locate the lamp he was going to find himself right up against a very hard wall. He’d been thinking about her constantly since he had left her office, the strat side of his nature trying