Fired Up

Acid greens mingled with impossible shades of paranormal blues, blacks and purples. Until now she had resisted looking at the artifact with all of her senses flung wide. Now that she had looked at it, she could not turn away.
    Some of the dreamlight residue on the lamp was old and glowed with a disturbing iridescence that she recognized as the hallmark of raw power. For the first time panic skittered on little rat feet across her senses. What had she gotten herself into?
    She took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to do it. For Jack.
    “Your ancestors left their prints on the lamp,” she said. “The earliest could easily be a few hundred years old.”
    “Nicholas Winters.” Jack’s voice was low but it was freighted with the energy he was generating.
    “The hues and shades and the patterns of the wavelengths are similar in some ways to your own. Psychic genetics at work. There’s another set of particularly powerful prints. Newer but well over a century old.”
    “Griffin Winters.”
    She studied some of the other traces of dreamlight on the lamp. “I can also see the prints of the women who worked the lamp. The oldest still burns with rage and despair and an overpowering need for vengeance.”
    “Eleanor Fleming, the first woman who worked the lamp. She’s the one who bore Nicholas a son and then used the energy of the lamp to destroy Nicholas’s talent.”
    She shivered. “Here’s the really sad part: On some level, deep in her dreamscape, she loved him, or at least she was bonded to him.”
    “Because of the child?”
    “Yes. In turn, Nicholas was obsessed with her, probably because he realized that she was the key to controlling the power of the lamp. Those two obviously had issues.”
    “What about Griffin Winters and Adelaide Pyne?”
    She studied the second set of strong dreamprints with all of her senses. It took power to control power. Griffin and Adelaide had both possessed off-the-charts talent.
    “There was a bond between them as well. It was definitely sexual in nature.” She stilled. “Maybe that’s the real key to controlling the lamp.”
    “What?”
    “Some kind of psychic link between the Winters man and the dreamlight worker.”
    “Hold it right there,” Jack said. “Don’t try to tell me that the couple that works the lamp together has to be in love. Thought you said you were not a romantic?”
    “Trust me, we’re not talking about anything as vague and ephemeral as romantic love,” she assured him. “But everyone knows that there is a lot of psi generated during sex. Maybe that’s why we wound up in bed last night.”
    “You think the lamp made us do it? Okay, that’s an original excuse.”
    “Think about it. We’d been near it for hours, and that sucker gives off a lot of energy. Who knows what kind of influence it exerted on our auras?”
    “You definitely are not a romantic, are you?”
    “Told you, I can’t afford to be. Not with my talent.”
    “Fine. But keep one thing in mind: We were attracted to each other before we found the lamp.”
    “Yes.” She studied the lamp. “But I wonder if that’s because . . .”
    “It’s because we’re attracted to each other,” he growled. “There’s no need to blame it on psychic voodoo.”
    “Okay, okay, take it easy.”
    “Let’s get back to business here. Can you work this thing or not?”
    “Don’t worry, we’re good.” Never let the client see you sweat. “Piece of cake.”
    The radiation emanating from the lamp was brighter, more intense now. From the heavy base to the flared rim it pulsed with energy. She watched, fascinated, as wispy tendrils of ultralight twisted and curled. Slowly the strange metal alloy became first translucent and then transparent. The psi fire swirling within it was clearly visible.
    “Jack, it’s working,” she whispered.
    “I can feel it,” he said. His voice roughened with something other than psi. “I can feel your energy, too.”
    He was still drenched in shadows and the icy shades of moon and neon, but the rising tide of dreamlight etched his stern features. His hard, ascetic profile was revealed in the dark hues that emanated from the far end of the spectrum.
    The transformation of the lamp was complete. The artifact now appeared to be fashioned of pure, clear crystal. As Chloe watched, all but one of the stones in the rim began to change, too. Each burned with inner fire. No longer opaque, the illuminated crystals took on distinct shades of