Fired Up

vibrant, still a little flushed and rosy from their lovemaking and the shower.
    “You need an assistant, Fallon,” he said into the phone. “You should learn to delegate.”
    “Yeah, people keep telling me that. But I don’t have time to find someone who could handle the job. And then there’s the other issue.”
    “What other issue?”
    Fallon was quiet for a couple of beats. “I’ve been told that I’m not the easiest person to work with.”
    “Hard to believe.”
    “I know, go figure. Thing is, even if I did find someone suitable, what are the odds that he or she would want to pull up stakes and move here to Scargill Cove?”
    “What’s wrong with Scargill Cove? Thought it was one of those picturesque little coastal towns like Mendocino.”
    “Small towns are small towns. Doesn’t matter what the scenery looks like. The only movie theater here closed four years ago. The one bookstore stocks books on vegan cooking and meditation. Most of the locals can best be described as interesting characters, and the only restaurant clean enough to take a date to is the Sunshine Café, which closes at five thirty. They roll up the streets at night around here.”
    Jack took the phone away from his ear and looked at it. He put the phone back to his ear.
    “You’re thinking of inviting a woman out on a date?” he asked cautiously.
    “I’m a man,” Fallon muttered. “I have needs.”
    “Then maybe you’d better move to another town. Someplace where you have a shot at getting those needs fulfilled.”
    “That won’t work.” Fallon exhaled heavily. “I require peace and quiet. Lots of peace and quiet. Scargill Cove works for me.”
    “I hesitate to state the obvious, but have you considered registering with arcanematch?”
    “What’s the point? Everyone knows that the Society’s database isn’t much good at finding matches for guys like us. Look what happened when you went shopping for a wife there. You were divorced two years later.”
    “Just because my marriage didn’t work out doesn’t mean that arcanematch wouldn’t work for you.”
    “Hell, I’m not looking for a wife. I don’t have time to deal with a wife. Wives require a lot of attention.”
    “Maybe what you need is a wife who shares your interest in running J&J,” Jack said. He wondered when he had become an expert on marriage. Fallon was right, his own had not been what anyone would call a resounding success.
    “What the hell are we doing talking about my private life?” Fallon demanded. “I’ve got work to do. I’ll get the team of hunters out to you later today. They’ll be driving from L.A. Don’t want to risk taking the lamp through airline security. They should reach you in about four hours, assuming I can get hold of them right away.”
    Fallon ended the connection, as was his custom, without bothering with the usual civilities such as good-bye or see ya or talk to you later. Jack lowered the phone and looked at Chloe.
    “Fallon Jones is sending a team out from L.A. to collect the lamp. We’ve got a few hours to kill. What do you say we go downstairs and have breakfast? I’m hungry.” He thought about it and smiled. This was the first time in weeks when he’d contemplated food as anything more than fuel. “Really, really hungry.”

34
    IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHIN THE SPRAWLING casino-hotel complex without having to traverse the gaming floor. Chloe lowered her senses to the minimum, but there was no way to ignore the layers of feverish dreamprints that fluoresced everywhere in the eternal night that enveloped the vast room.
    The glowing residue of psi left by thousands of frantic, excited, and desperate players gave the midnight realm an otherworldly luminescence. Weaving a path through the glowing card tables, roulette wheels and banks of slot machines was like swimming through a maze of boiling sulfur cauldrons at the bottom of the ocean.
    The hotel featured over a dozen restaurants, bars and fast- food eateries, all scattered around the perimeter of the gaming floor. The large café that catered to the breakfast and lunch crowd had a very short line. The seating hostess showed them to a booth. Chloe ignored the sickly psi prints that glowed all across the sparkling clean table and opened her menu. Jack sat down across from her. He put the leather duffel containing the lamp on one side of the seat and positioned his computer case on the other. The subtle aura of dark power emanating from the