Fired Up

finances he had contracted a marriage with the daughter of a wealthy landowner.”
    “Eleanor knew about the engagement, I assume?”
    “Yes. When Nick showed up on her doorstep again it was too much. She agreed to work the lamp for him one more time. And she did. But instead of using it to provide him with a third talent, she took her revenge by frying all of his senses with it.”
    “What happened?” Chloe asked.
    “There was a struggle. Nick survived. Eleanor did not.”
    Chloe’s eyes widened. “He killed her?”
    “It’s not clear. One theory is that the radiation that Eleanor unleashed affected her as well as Nick. She died at the scene, that much is known. Nick lived, but not long afterward his psychic talents began to fail. He realized what had happened and went crazy with rage. He was convinced that his old friend, Sylvester, had paid Eleanor to erase his new powers.”
    “So that’s why he tried to murder Sylvester,” Chloe said.
    “Yes. But before the final confrontation he went back into his laboratory one last time. He had enough talent left to finish forging one more stone to insert into the lamp. He called it the Midnight Crystal. He believed it had some extraordinary properties and that somehow it would ensure that one of his descendants would use the lamp to destroy the descendants of Sylvester Jones.”
    “Then he confronted Jones?”
    “Right. He didn’t expect to survive the encounter. But he wanted Sylvester to know that he had prepared his revenge and that it was a dish that would be served ice cold. There is no record of exactly what happened that day. All we know is that when the final meeting between the two men was over, Nicholas was dead.”
    “What about Eleanor’s son?” Chloe asked.
    “You don’t know that part of the story, either?”
    “No.”
    “Sylvester took the boy and gave him to one of his three mistresses to raise.”
    Chloe looked stunned. “Sylvester adopted Nicholas’s son?”
    “Not formally. He didn’t make the boy a Jones. But he saw to it that he was cared for and educated.”
    “Hmm.” Chloe pursed her lips. “Sylvester was never known for being kindhearted.”
    “I doubt that kindness had anything to do with it. It’s possible that he was curious to see if Nicholas’s son would inherit his father’s first and second talents. More likely he wanted to keep an eye on the boy to make certain he didn’t show any signs of becoming the anti-Jones.”
    “In other words, the Winters boy was just another lab experiment to Sylvester.”
    “Neither Nicholas nor Sylvester went down in the historical record as good fathers.”

21
    THE PULL CORD THAT WORKED THE YELLOWED CURTAINS COVERING the small window was broken. She used both hands to drag the tattered fabric across the grimy glass, cutting off the view of the aging casino and the adjoining café across the street.
    “Do you really think that J&J is watching you?” she asked.
    “When it comes to Fallon Jones, paranoia is the only intelligent response,” Jack said. He was crouched on the floor beside the crate, crowbar in hand. “Now that I’ve got the lamp, I intend to keep the lowest possible profile until I find out if you can work it.”
    “And if I can’t work it?”
    “Then my profile is going to get a hell of a lot lower.”
    She chilled. “But where will you go?”
    “For your own sake, it’s better if you don’t know anything more than that.”
    She sighed. “Well, this place certainly qualifies as low profile. I have a feeling the rooms usually rent by the hour, not the night. No telling when the sheets were last changed.”
    “Got a hunch you’re right.”
    There was a metallic groan of steel and wood. A couple of nails popped free. She slipped into her other sight and studied the ultralight wavelengths seeping out of the crate. Dark energy swirled in the atmosphere.
    “If things do work out as planned, how are you going to get the lamp back to Seattle?” she asked.
    “As a carry-on,” Jack said. “How did you think I was going to get it back?”
    Two more nails popped free.
    “That might not be such a good idea,” she said. “The energy leaking out of that thing will probably make the passengers sitting around us a little edgy.”
    “A lot of people get uneasy when they fly. I’m sure as hell not going to check the lamp and risk having it wind up in St. Louis or Acapulco.”
    The last nail came free. Jack put down the crowbar. For a few seconds he just